don't be a jerk.

so wingman goes to this lego engineering class about 35 minutes down the road in another town. for an hour and a half every week. i don't get a lot of time alone, so i really cherish that hour and a half. i sit and read in the car, go for a walk around the neighborhood. once i fell asleep and it was the best nap i'd had in ages.

so, there is this one mother who really really wants to be my friend. i have known this for awhile. and she is friendly and nice and she reminds me of a lot of the old hippie women i knew when i was a hippie. the thing is, she lives in another town. and my kid doesn't care for her kid. and she is much older than i am. and i could go on and on but it just isn't clicking for me. though we chat at drop off and pick up, i really just want my hour and a half. to myself. alone.

well, yesterday i was just dropping wingman off and i see her practically RUNNING up the driveway to get to my car. i could have pretended not to see her. i could have just driven away. but i didn't. i waited. because she was practically running. and there's usually a reason people run towards other people. and when she got to my car she chatted me up and then the inevitable came 'do you maybe want to get a cup of coffee sometime?' she seemed really nervous asking, too.

i didn't. i don't. i just want my hour and a half. to myself. i never have more than one cup of coffee. and i already had coffee. i just want my walk. i don't see this going anywhere because lego is almost over and my kid doesn't care for her kid.

i could have said next week, i'm busy, etc.

but i didn't. because she was practically running up the driveway. because she seemed lonely. and because if someone asks you to coffee they like you. and if there's no good reason to say no it seems jerky to say no. because it's just coffee. and sometimes it's hard for people to ask even just for coffee. so i said 'well how about right now? would you like to have coffee and a walk?'

she was so excited. 'oh yes. let's meet by the library and go to the coffee shop on the corner.'

so we met by the library and went to the coffee shop on the corner. wherein she declared she'd already had too much coffee. but by the time she did i had been standing at the counter for awhile waiting for the barista, a woman a bit older than me, to finish with the slowest least engaged customer service i've seen in awhile and acknowledge we were there. while her co-worker held the counter up and looked on.

so there i am in line, committed to the idea of coffee at this point, and it's obvious the woman who asked me to coffee wasn't going to carry the conversation. it was getting awkward. and i resisted grabbing my inner nice person and saying SEE! this is why you say NO to coffee!

instead i turned to the woman who asked me for coffee but wasn't going to have coffee or initiate conversation and smiled at her and said, 'hey. i hear it's supposed to snow tomorrow. i'm pretty excited about that.'

well the woman who was standing next to us snorted and sarcastically said, 'yeah. right. hasn't happened yet this year.'

i looked at her and smiled and said, 'well, i choose to remain optimistic.'

she stopped fiddling in her enormous purse and looked at me and gave a sharp laugh and said, 'yeah. you do that.'

so then the barista finally turns around, no smile, no apology, and looked at us and said 'who's next.'

she saw us come in. i made eye contact with her and smiled. i stood there for a good 5 minutes while the woman who was next to us hadn't even come in yet. she knows who's next but this is easier. lazy.

i smiled at her and ordered and she slapped down the cup and didn't point to where the coffee could be had. in case you're wondering, it's around the corner. practically hidden.

so i walked and talked with the woman who asked me for coffee and it turns out she has MS. (which made me glad i didn't drive away from her practically running toward me) and it turns out we home school very much the same. that she's never seen california and her dream is to one day live in a big victorian house. that when her boy was little she took him to an episcopalian church just to make sure he knew there were religious options out there and the people were mean to her. that her ex husband is a drummer and that her apartment's too small and her current husband drinks too much coffee. and she spends too much on used children's books but she loves them so much. and that her 9 bookshelves are out of space. so she stacks them on the floor.

and when we were done with the walk she said grabbed my hand and looked at me and said, 'thank you for the walk. this was really nice.' and she was smiling. and i was too.

i've been jerky in my life. i've not always been pleasant. i have not always been engaged in my time in customer service. but i was younger then. and i learned as time when on what it meant to be kind over jerky. to be engaged over lazy in my dealings with others. because that's what aging does, it teaches you things. if you let it.

those jerky women in the coffee shop were about my same age. and they both could have been having a bad day. but i'm just going to be a jerk here and say i'll bet not. because when someone is smiling at you and being pleasant and you throw back with jerkiness i doubt it's one bad day. i'll bet it's a string of bad days. probably from having a jerky attitude. from not letting aging teach you things. perhaps from letting aging take over.

i've been doing research on dating in your 40s (and by 'doing research' i mean that i'm actually doing research. not dating in my 40s.) and a lot of the articles and advice seem to suggest that as a woman in your 40s whatever bitterness you have you should leave it at home and off your dating profile or risk turning people off.

and that seemed a little presumptive, that just because a woman makes it to her 40s she's got this wellspring of bitterness that must be contained if she's gonna be successful dating. but i can kinda see what they're saying. if you are in a little clutch of women in a small town coffee shop in the middle of an afternoon and the weather is fine outside and someone is smiling at you and being pleasant and you can't NOT be a jerk in that moment good luck with the wild world of dating.

or something like that.

this world can be very lonely for some people. this world can be a dearth of interesting people or interactions or just plain and simple human contact for some people. i am blessed to have a loving family and interesting friends and do work that i enjoy. not everyone is so lucky.

so, yeah, i don't *have* to say yes to coffee. or smile at a rude barista. or keep myself from telling ms. tall nutella latte with non-fat to shove her shitty attitude into her seriously ugly ass purse.

but i do. because sometimes it makes just that little bit of difference. and sometimes that's enough. worth it. for the times that it doesn't. more than worth it, even.

x.

and the best part is my ass looks great in snowboarding pants. dude.

so i went snowboarding. at 40. in dubious physical condition. and i didn't die.

along with a whole host of other things i vowed never to do, snowboarding was always at the top of the list. i'm not a snow sports kinda girl. i don't enjoy adventure of the icy fast kind. it's just how i don't roll.

but my husband LOVED snowboarding when he did it. and the duke joined the snowboarding club at school and learned how and LOVES it. and wingman has always wanted to try it. so i said great, they can all go together!

but then i started thinking about it and i realized that if they were all off doing something fun together that i wanted to be part of it. as the duke gets older his interests become more his own. fueled by invitations from other kids and the interests of his peer group. and i started thinking about how much i want to have something fun to do with him. separate from the parent/child things we do. something that wasn't eating dinner together or running errands or helping him study for his tests. i want a bridge with him. a shared interest. especially as he begins the age appropriate process of separation from us. so. i made the decision to learn to snowboard.

and yes. it was the worst decision i ever made. it sucked. it hurt. i hit my head. i fell on my ass. i simply could not understand anything the instructor was saying. he was kind and patient and bless his heart for holding my ass up for longer than anyone should have to. and thank god he was a big guy. and that i didn't get the hippie bird lady instructor. but i just didn't get it.

what am i doing here i wondered more than once. i can walk away from this right now. and should, i reminded myself more than once. nobody would think ill of me. i tried. it was hard. i could. i could walk away.

it started with the boots. the learning curve with the boots happened in the bathroom when i went to pee. did you know your ankles don't move in snowboarding boots? yeah, see, i didn't know this. i discovered it when i landed on my bare ass. hard. bruise #1 of the day.

the goddess mother decided to take the class with me. her two kids and wingman were all taking instruction, too. we gathered up. and right then i saw a penny lying on the ground. stupidly i took it as a lucky sign. but after the debacle in the bathroom i didn't dare try to bend over and pick it up. we headed out. and from the minute that board was strapped to my feet i had no fucking clue what was going on. it's like everything that instructor said was in a whole other language. i was completely out of my element. i fell and hit my head so hard i thought i was a goner. okay. not really. but i thought it might get me out of the rest of the lesson.

meanwhile the goddess mother is totally awesome. she's falling, but she's getting it. i could not get it. and i could not even stand up on the board without the instructor holding me up. and the minute the board started to move a fear gripped me like nothing else. i was 100% out of my element with no control whatsoever.

i discovered i did not like inclines or speed. just as i suspected. and told myself all my life. i couldn't even *get up* off of the snow let alone mosey down an incline without intense fear and a total fucking wipeout. what in the fuck was i doing out there i kept asking myself. what am i doing to my body. this is so hard. and i am so scared.

it was my mantra all morning. i called it the mantra of the damned.

then right at the end of the lesson i discovered two things:

#1 i was getting up the hard way. as in not able to get up at all. i kept trying it the hard way and the instructor didn't push me to do it the easy way. he just kept pulling me up. i discovered the other way was the easy way. and if you saw the 'easy' way you'd laugh your ass off. easy, no. easier, yes. so. i could get up. finally.

#2 i was riding all wrong. i was leading with the hand i write with like they told me. but that's not the dominant side of my body. i was riding regular when i should have been riding 'goofy.' truer words...anyway. i discovered this by complete and total accident when the instructor let me go and i lost all control and got turned leading in the 'wrong' direction. and even though i was out of control and had no clue what in the hell i was doing, it was the first time that day i didn't feel total abject fear. and then i got going too fast and wiped out so spectacularly and painfully. good thing that fence was there.

so. i could get up. and i wasn't riddled with total abject fear. baby steps. jesus.

it was lunchtime and i didn't know whether to cry or throw up. i was so miserable. despite that small bit of progress i could not understand why i would put myself through this. this is awful, i said. this is expensive and horrible and why people do it i don't know, i said. and the pain, the pain i said. i was near tears the whole time we ate lunch.

but you sure look cute in your gear, my husband said.

my father would say that's half the battle, i answered. cracking the first real smile of the day.

so after lunch no more lesson. but my husband said he'd work with me. we switched my bindings around so i could ride goofy. and even though i could now get up, i just slid. i had no control at all. i could understand my husband in a way i didn't understand the instructor, but i wasn't getting it. at all. i sent him off with the duke to have some fun. wingman was getting the hang of it and there's the goddess mother heading up to go down the big hill!

her little kids were kinda done and so was i. i'll just hang here with them, i said. at the bottom. safe.

and i watched wingman doing it. from the bottom. safe.

i did this for awhile. and then i did it for longer.

and then i got mad. mad at myself. because i stuck myself at the bottom of the hill. because that's what i do. that's what i've done. my whole life. played it safe. down at the bottom. i don't risk anything that way. not public embarrassment. not failure. not doing something hard that i may be horrible at. when everyone around me is good at it. i stay in the boundaries i draw for myself.

which is what my father did. his whole life. until he fucking didn't. and went off every rail there was, never finding a balance.  and i got very angry. for falling into that (the boundaries around, not the going off the rails.) and i thought about that lucky penny on the ground i didn't pick up because i was afraid of falling. god dammit. here i am again. here. and i looked up into the sky and i said, dad. i'm gonna do this. please watch over me. because i'm really scared.

and so i grabbed my board and hiked up the stupid little incline. and i sat at the top and strapped on my board. and it took forever to get the bindings all squared away. and then i dug the top of the board, with me strapped into it, into the snow and hoisted myself up and over and landed on my knees. and then i got up. the easy way. and i used my toes and dug the edge of the board in the snow and i didn't move. i got up and i wasn't sliding. how i did that i will never know, but something clicked. and i understood the words of the instructor. finally.

but now i was facing the hill with my back to the bottom of the incline and i needed to turn around. so i went easy. tiny movements. and i saw wingman. WHAT DO I DO NOW i shouted down. TALK ME THROUGH THIS. he told me to bend my knees, and reminded me what my husband had told us both, lean your shoulder in the direction you want to go. so. i did. and i wiped out and slid. and it hurt. but i made it a few inches, with no one holding me up before i fell. baby steps.

i got out of my bindings and grabbed the board and hiked back up the incline. and i went through it all again. and i got up. and i didn't slide. but i couldn't figure out how to get down the hill without falling.

and then i remembered what my husband said before leaving me to go to the chair lift. he told me that i was thinking too much about stopping. stopping and how to stop. that i needed to think more about moving. how to keep moving. how to move down the incline.

so. i did. i thought about moving. and then i was. and i bent my knees and leaned my shoulder in the direction i wanted to go. and i was about to wipe out but i was able to touch the ground and push myself back up. and i made it down the stupid little incline. and fell spectacularly at the bottom. and heard wingman cheering me on.

i got out of my bindings and grabbed the board and hiked back up the incline. and i made it up. and i made it down. and i fell. a bunch of times. more than a girl my age should be falling. but i made it up and down and i did it.

it was hard. and it sucked. and then i got it. and it was still hard. but it didn't suck. and i wasn't afraid anymore.

i have spent a lot of my life afraid. afraid of trying and doing. afraid of looking stupid. or being bad at something. i limit myself with ideas i have about what i can and cannot do. i hide behind an old neck injury that actually doesn't bother me anymore. i hide behind my age. my physical shape. i hide.

what i don't do enough of is tell myself about the times i haven't hid. about the times i took the leap of faith. made the jump. sometimes literally. the times i tried. i jumped out of an airplane i said 'i do' twice i held the hand of a dying friend and watched her take her last breath i gave birth a second time after nearly dying the first i forgave the person who hurt me the absolute most in the world i lost my house and found my way forward i lost my father and i'm still getting up everyday.

i don't want to live the next half of my life at the bottom of the hill. where it's safe. where i have convinced myself i belong. because it's easier that way.

because the thing is, it isn't any fun. because more often than not, you're down there by yourself. and i can't build that bridge of shared interests with my rapidly growing older kids if i'm down at the bottom.

so we decided we were done for the day. and as i was taking off my board i looked up and saw the guy who had been running the magic carpet along the incline (which i did not ride thank you very much) giving me a thumbs up. he had been watching silently the whole time i was huffing it up and down the incline. all the times i was cursing and near tears and falling and then not.

and after we turned in our gear and were leaving i walked over to where i had seen the penny earlier. and sure enough there it still was. and i decided it was indeed lucky. and i picked it up. and said what you say when you pick up a lucky penny. and i thought about my father. about how he didn't try and how he did. and i thanked him for helping me get down that incline. all the inclines he helped me down.

and the ones he helped me up.

and i missed him profoundly right in that moment. and i was so proud of myself right in that moment.

so. i guess i've picked up snowboarding. at 40. just like that.

and it turns out it was one of the best decisions i've ever made.

and like my father would say, isn't that something?

x.

amen.

i listen to church on the radio on sunday mornings. more often than not i also clean the kitchen during this time.

and during every service there is a time when they invite people to pray as they are able. standing, kneeling, sitting, etc.

this morning when they issued the invitation i was scrubbing the pan i used to roast the veggies in last night for the friends we had to dinner. thinking about how even our leanest times when we had so very little and everything was hard and tenuous we have always been able to eat. to feed our children. to feed others. how lucky we have been. we are.

i was washing the champagne flute that my friend ingrid used last night. carefully wiping the remains of her lipstick from the rim. thinking about what a beautiful person she is, inside and out. how i am so happy to know her. how lucky any of us are to have friends, let alone such precious ones.

i scraped the remains of the sauteed kale from a dinner plate. thinking about how lucky i am to have such wonderful sons. sons i can say, hey, can you prep the kale for tonight and they do. they can. they understand exactly what i mean. they do not fuss. they do not protest. they prep the kale and mop the floors and tidy the living room. i work and they work so that we can have friends over and no one person is stuck with all the tasks that involve having friends over.

i washed my husband's beer glass and thought of how he helped with dinner and cleaned the bathroom and at the end of the night he put me to bed after too much fun and way too much wine. and then before he went to bed he went downstairs and broke down the extra table and put away the extra chairs and the leftover food and washed the grossest pan and stacked the dishes and tidied the kitchen then woke up and made me coffee and breakfast. how he works so hard and supports so much. how lucky i am. we are.

in this way, i pray. i assume the position that is most comfortable to me. in the place i spend so much of my time. i think about the people i love. i think about the foods i make to feed these people. i think about the mess that comes from gathering people together, dirty dishes, a cracked champagne flute, a lost DS game and how easy it is to say aw, why bother. people don't bother. it's easy with e-mail and facebook and smart phones to bother less and less.

and as i dump the dishwater and rinse out the sink and take off my gloves and take off my apron and wash my hands and finally put lotion on i walk into the dining room and see them. three juice glasses, a coffee cup, and the platter with leftover breakfast potatoes.

i take a deep breath and prepare to get really irritated and just then i remember what i heard earlier on church on the radio: we don't love someone because they are perfect. we love someone because we do.

life isn't perfect. life is messy. feeding people is messy. cleaning up after takes a long time. it'd be easier to just not bother. so i take another deep breath and i grab the three juice glasses and the coffee cup and the platter with the leftover breakfast potatoes. and i put the potatoes in a tupperware and i wash the juice glasses and the coffee cup and the platter.

and i wash my hands again. put on more lotion. glad that i bother. lucky.

x.

wherein i reveal why exactly it is that women are so soft and fabulous.

so every year at this time i start getting it in my head that i want to have another baby. every.single.year. at the same time. like the flu. or taxes.

i start noticing cherubic toddler cheeks peeking out from knit caps. i see babies in strollers and long to pick them up. i don't, but i really really want to. because hormones make you crazy. i always think about that when i read news accounts of women who go nuts and do crazy things. i wonder...

i look at old baby pictures of the boybarians and remember ONLY THE GOOD TIMES. never the times i wanted to run away screaming or leave my kids in the free pile or considered implementing mama happy hour at 8:30 in the morning.

i think about how beautiful and sexy pregnant women are. how the clothes are WAY cuter now than they were 16 years ago. or that magical few months when you feel like liquid gold. mainly because you don't feel like shit 24 hours a day anymore. like how not getting hit in the head with a board feels so good after it stops. after the nausea, before the cankles.

i never think about that. how sick i am for four months solid or how i gain 85 pounds when i'm pregnant or how having another baby could literally kill me. not 'literally' like a drunk college girl uses the world either. like kill me dead. you'd think that would be a deal breaker for even thinking about it right there. but apparently not. silly mortals are weird that way.

or that i'd have another bunch of breastfeeding and co-sleeping and homeschooling years ahead of me. when frankly i'm lucky my boobs and my sanity have weathered the first two rounds as well as they have. nope. all i'm thinking about is how amazing it is to hold a brand new baby.

a little revisionist history. you know, like how texas writes their textbooks.

it's a bad idea. for me. for all the reasons i listed. and it's not gonna happen. but it doesn't mean it *can't.* and that's the scary part right there. one false move. one too many cocktails. paired with the goosh that is my brain thinking about it for a good part of the new year. it's a minefield out there. (this is the part wherein the husband stops reading and seriously reconsiders our romantic evening out tomorrow for his birthday. might as well file this under 'how not to flirt 101.')

so i was thinking about it this morning while i was staring out the window at, i kid you not, a toddler playing with a puppy! AACK! and it hit me. it's JUST BIOLOGY. that's it. that's all. it's not a need or a want or a loss of a possibility. it's not a choice to make. i mean it is, for some, but not for me. i made my choice. BUT there's still that little matter of 'the childbearing years.' just because your head and heart make a decision doesn't mean your body will go along with it. it's hardwired for what it's hardwired for.

(which explains SO MUCH. mainly bad boyfriend choices. but that's another post.)

it's just what happens when you're born a girl. it starts early and goes late and then it's gone. in the meantime you've got decades of TRYING NOT to get pregnant then TRYING TO get pregnant then TRYING NOT to get pregnant again. that's if you've decided to have kids. and that's if it all goes swimmingly. for some it doesn't. for some it's a heartbreaking and horrific ordeal.

basically it's an amazing, magical, fucked up process. and it goes on SO LONG. and there's next to nothing we can do about it. and it spills over into so many parts of our lives. sometimes all of them. and it may or may not have been responsible for a few tense words and a box of popsicles being thrown against the wall in the late 90s. good lord it's a wonder we don't all end up in a corner rocking back and forth. more.

OF COURSE i'm going to be affected by the cute and the cuddly and the memories of how wonderful newborns and toddlers and preschoolers are. how watching your child grow is the most awe inspiring heartbreaking thing you can ever do. who wouldn't want that again? then pair all that with all that biology and BAM! another baby at 40 coming off the worst year of my life coupled with the fact that i haven't exactly gotten around to losing all of the baby weight from the last baby (who is now 11) yet seems like a *fine* idea. oh. and i forgot about the kill me dead part. again.

god. just thinking about it makes me want to re-consider the implementation of the 8:30 a.m. mama happy hour.

so there you have it. and i share this all with you to put it out to the universe. again. how it isn't gonna happen. i also share this all with you so that the next time you look at a woman just know that what you see is NEVER 'all' of what you get. there's a lot going on underneath that skin. a LOT. so allowing a bit of latitude for how that translates 'behavior wise' is always appreciated. because sometimes we can't help going bat shit crazy. can.not.help.it.

THAT'S why they make us so soft and fabulous on the outside.

it's survival of the species. it's also why they make toddlers and puppies so cute.

and wine.

x.

your moment(s) of zen.

a friend on a certain social networking site posted something a few days ago about how we are all beautiful. and how people can't accept being told they're beautiful. they simply don't believe it. but they should. i'm likely paraphrasing terribly, but that's the gist.

i've been thinking about that the past few days. about how beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. that it really does come from inside. but most of us have a hard time imagining that could ever be applied to 'us.' me? beautiful? nawwwww. and i'd have to say it's because in this culture the *beauty* we truly *prize* is that which is nearly unattainable by the masses. not to mention nearly unsustainable over the long haul we call life. so as we get older it becomes less believable. who? me? but i'm 40? i'm 38? 57? my stomach isn't flat and i have grey hair. beautiful? nawwwww.

why is that? why can't we just be beautiful to the people who find us beautiful?

i suppose it's the same reason we exercise and watch what we eat to be 'thin' rather than 'healthy.' because in this culture 'thin' = 'healthy.'

how do any of us make it out alive i will never know. oh, that's right. we don't.

okay, anyway, moving right along...i was driving the husband to work this morning and noticed, as i always do on this drive, how many funeral homes i pass in the 5 miles there, and the 5 going home. how the fire station is always hopping.

and then i heard wingman pipe up from the backseat

'have you noticed all the flower shops are going out of business?'

death and tragedy can survive anything, but not the florists. apparently celebration is not sustainable over the long haul, either.

which got me thinking about beauty again. about how flowers make people happy. because they are beautiful. but not every flower is beautiful to every person. people have their favorites. but we can say, as a whole, flowers are beautiful. people are beautiful. especially the people we love.

when i see a friend i look at that face and it makes me happy. because i love them. because they are my friend. all my friends are beautiful. to me. and really, that's all that matters. right? right.

so thinking about beauty and the florists and friends i haven't seen i too long and how anything can happen at any moment. and mostly, does. we lose people. that's just a fact. they die. or they just leave. and you never see them again. ever. and what once was so hopeful and loving and special and heart tugging and amusing and fun lies in a kind of relationship ruins. that's just there. not often visited, but still there. still in the guidebook. even after all these years.

and my hand went to my heart and i was touched by this idea of the fragility of it all. kind of like a cosmic 'oh.' how the funeral homes and the fire stations will always do a brisk business while the florists must struggle to survive. no further than that, just thinking how very silly mortal this business of living is.

and i KID YOU NOT RIGHT THEN AND THERE the following song came on the radio. just like that. which just goes to prove everything is connected. and just as it should be. and is constantly circling about itself. and that life is the most amazing goddamned thing i can think of. even the silly mortal moments. all amazing.

you are beautiful. and if you were here i would throw my arms around you and whisper it in your ear. 'you are beautiful.' and then i would say 'HELLO!' and 'i realize that life goes fast and it's hard to make the good things last but you and me together here is a start.' and even though i'm not a hugger i would tighten my arms and hold on just a little bit longer. give those funeral homes and fire stations a run for their money. life really is too short for anything less. so here you go. your moment(s) of zen. enjoy!

be blessed,

x.

that's his story and he's sticking to it.

so today wingman turns 11. he also just happens to be getting ready to go through a growth spurt.

i know i've talked about this before. how right before he goes through a growth spurt he does this regression thing. favoring old toys long since put away, reminiscing about when he was little, etc.

he doesn't want to get bigger. or older. he doesn't want to grow up. he doesn't want to be a teenager.

he wants to stay his size and his age. he is comfortable here. in a world where he can ignore the opposite sex and the existence of the 'inappropriate for his age.' he is safe here without the workaday worries and concerns he sees his older brother going through. he is happy here. with his legos and his video games and his mama and papa and his cats and his casually crafted perfect world.

he has seen how it can change. and does. seemingly in an instant. he watches his brother and has seen that rapid transformation. he has had a front row seat to how much it can change in just a year for an adult. he knows upheaval. he knows people die. he knows people get older. and with that comes all these 'things.' and he doesn't like what he sees. and even though he's shielded from the worst of the worries and we mostly spin it all towards the positive, he's not stupid. and very observant.

i indulge this. i meet him where he is. because you have one chance to be a child, and he's doing it the way he sees fit.

for his birthday he asked to get a happy meal. can i tell you how long it's been since he's asked for one of those? so long i can't actually remember. he says it's because the burgers 'always tasted better coming from the happy meal box.' because he likes the apple fries. and because he saw on television that they were offering hot wheels as the toy. he used to love hot wheels.

the other morning when i was sitting with the husband while he had his breakfast before work, and the duke was packed off to the bus for school i heard a strange noise from upstairs. wingman was supposed to be sleeping so i headed up to check it out. and i saw the door to his room ajar. and when i looked in i saw him lying on his stomach driving a hot wheels back and forth across the wooden floor. it's been years since he's had a hot wheel in his hand.

i remember leaving childhood behind. and was mostly glad to do so. good riddance and all that.

but what if your childhood is one marked by warmth and comfort and balloons on your birthday and bubbles in the summer your toes in the soft grass always with family and friends and pets you adore and cozy beds waiting for you to get tucked into. parents you love AND like and a brother you adore. what if you were the buddha baby and grew into the smiley cheerful much adored charming child. how could anyone ask you to leave that behind?

i ask you.

so for now i let him mostly be. there isn't anything either of us can do so i'm just going to let it do what it needs. this growing thing. he is a bright and engaged kid. he'll make his way. right now he just isn't keen to do it so quickly.

which brings out some critics. especially when people find out your 11 year old boy still likes stuffed animals. 'you still let him have stuffed animals?' that's when i choose to tell them he also likes anything that has cats printed stamped or glazed onto it. the more the merrier.

hey, i went through it all already. everything those crazy hippie parents do i did. people had their opinions then and they were welcome to them.

and when my boys each wore the salmon pink long sleeved undershirt (hand me down, so soft and cozy, practical) because that's what they grew into at the time people had their opinions and they were welcome to them. because boys don't wear pink. okay. check.

then there was the duke's barbie (he wanted it) and wingman's doll house (every single kid who came to our house, boy or girl young or old, ended up playing with that doll house) all of it. and don't get me started on the pink doll stroller. hand me down. perfect condition. and it got the babies from A to B. which is all it needs to do when you're three years old. it doesn't need to make a statement. it's a pink doll stroller. not a 'slippery slope.'

so i was making mistakes left and right. ruining my kids. this is me smiling. bless their hearts.

even with all the best intentions a lot of what parenting becomes is not about what the child needs but about what the parent wants to project. which is to say if children are an extension of us and our family then *surely* they should have their best most sophisticated step forward. always. right? their talents and accomplishments should be their calling card. and these should be crafted and honed and nurtured. and then everyone can truly see your child shine. and that's what people should see. the shine. everything else either slowly wiped out or hidden away. certainly not dragged out for company.

what *they* want to hear when they ask him or me questions is that he knows latin and greek and has a beautiful singing voice. that he's a talented artist. but what he will tell you about are his video games and his cats and how awesome the make it yourself touchscreen fountain drink dispenser is at five guys burgers and fries.

learning how to let go and let your children answer for themselves about who they are you definitely run the risk of appearing to have raised the 'least interesting child in the world.' it's okay. take a deep breath. you may curl your toes and want to jump in, but don't. this really is the good stuff.

i am all for talents and gifts in children. for earned bragging rights. for crowing about your kid. but i know there's absolutely no substitute on earth for your childhood. for just being 10. or 11. there's nothing that can replace it once it's happening and certainly not when it's gone.

so my kid is 11 and we're going for a happy meal and the hot wheel. he's got no room to sleep on his bed unless he moves all the stuffed animals. and he has an apron with a big fat smiley cat face on it. and he'd get another one if i let him (he doesn't *need* another one). it has a bunch of cats in chefs hats cooking, mixing, baking. there are butterflies here and there in the pattern. the butterflies are pink.

that's his story and he's sticking to it.

happy birthday, wingman!!! you are, simply, the best.

x.

it's 3 am. do you know what your thoughts are?

taking down the christmas tree is something i have never enjoyed doing.

and i used to think it's because it was a LOT of hassle and work. and i'm lazy. which it is. and i am.

until i start to do it.

then it's like no big deal. and goes really quickly. and before i can say nutcracker i'm sweeping up needles and reclaiming precious living room space.

no. the real thing about taking down the christmas tree is that it has to be done. must be. really. because if you don't...and it stays up too long, people start to talk. never take it down and well, that's just a slippery slope all the way to crazy town. and more talk. from the people. you know, the people. who talk.

so it's not that it's *work* it's that it's *there.* sitting in the corner. just waiting to be dealt with. losing its charm with each day passed and ornament attack by the resident cats.

and even as you put it off all you can think about is how charming it all starts out. as most issues do. the search the find the decorating the sheer hopefulness of a christmas tree all lit up. how every year you proclaim it to be 'the nicest tree we've ever had.' until it's past all the charm. and becomes an issue.

and so it sits. losing needles and gathering dust and mentally pricking you each time you see it. hey, over here. it's january 7th. it's january 8th. 12th. last weekend came and went. and so on. and so forth. hey, over here.

you can't ignore the christmas tree. literally. like trying to ignore a mime dressed in drag. it never says a word but the noise is deafening. and a christmas tree doesn't go away on its own. ever. they never ever have. even in the urban legends. a christmas tree requires you to deal with it. always.

isn't it funny how we can camouflage so much in our life without ever touching the issue. the non christmas tree in the corner issues. the wake us up at 3 am thoughts. gain some weight? buy some spanx. drink too much? take advil and drink water. deceive the ones you love? promise yourself you won't do it again. act like an asshole? blame anything else but yourself. rob a bank? tell yourself it's the last time. get taxed at 15% when you're a qudrabillionillnionaire? well tell yourself you're stimulating the economy. asshole.

there are all kinds of thoughts to have at 3 am. and no two are the same. and it's easy to pretend that the things that wake us up at 3 am aren't really any big deal. because we think no one else can see them. because we think we can hide them. yeah.

i always tell my kids that to just do something is better than sitting and fretting over having to do it. doing is better than complaining about the need to get it done. like the dalai lama says, we create our own chaos. take a deep breath. take it bird by bird. you have plenty of time, but only if you start now. start where you are.

easy to tell other people. especially the people in your life who 'have' to listen to you.

just so we're clear...the christmas tree is down. and it was easier than i thought. and the ornaments are even more organized than they were last year. and, it was no big deal. really.

well then hell wouldn't it be nice if all the 3 am thoughts we have were christmas trees? without all the treading of water or touching bottom to get there? wouldn't it be nice if all our 3 am thoughts were just smack dab in the living room. and we HAD to deal with them. just like that. no excuses. and forcing our action.

(i have a sneaking suspicion they can be. we just put them up and decorate them in the out of the way places. where there's very little light and we are the only ones who ever go there. makes it easier to do nothing and always have company at 3 am. sigh.)

i don't know where i'm going with this, i just know it must be said. because i know i'm not the only one who wakes up at 3 am. or battles with the christmas tree in the corner only to find it's not that big of a deal.

and i know i'm not the only one who sometimes wishes it could all be like the christmas tree. and that when it comes down it's down. that we can handle it easily and quickly. after dinner and in time for prime time. packaging it up better that we did last time. sweeping up all the detritus and tossing it all away. done.

just like that.

how nice would that be?

yeah.

x.

why i believe in santa.

i needed to run an errand to the drugstore. since it's christmas eve i headed out fearing the worst. turns out in my little corner of the world there was no traffic at all. so instead of turning to the drugstore i just kept driving.

i've been thinking about my father all day. missing my family terribly. missing home. and as i drove i thought about how much my father loved to drive. and about how much he loved christmas.

people have asked in the past why it is i 'let' my kids believe in santa claus. why i would lead them down the path of 'the big lie.' and i always chuckle because i believe in santa as much as my children. maybe even more.

i've made no secret that my childhood was a struggle. on many levels. when i was little there were times we had no heat or light. no electricity. once we did without a refrigerator for three months until my father could afford to replace it. i didn't get new school clothes until i started working at 13 and bought them myself. there were long stretches without a working vehicle. but we never went hungry and santa always came.

and the thing is, i *knew* from a very early age that the gifts under the tree weren't 'really' from santa. i just knew. but that never stopped me from lying in bed at night thinking about christmas and dreaming and wondering what santa would bring me. and even though i knew my father was responsible for pulling santa off and even though i knew we were ever on the margin, that there wasn't money for the basics at times, even though i knew this...santa always came. i don't know how, but he did. and every year it was like a christmas miracle. (i'm sure my father thought so, too.)

and that's how i learned to dream. to imagine that it could be different from what it is. that even though you can't always see it, it's there. possibility. it's there and it exists and the *only* thing you need is to believe.

and so my kids believe in santa. and i never stopped. and today while i was driving i was thinking about my father and santa and my heart was hurting so deeply i began to cry at a stoplight and knew i had to pull over. the light turned green and i made my way to the next driveway. and parked the car. and sobbed.

there's so much more to say here but i've said it all. and repeated it. and then said it again. this is such a humbling bumbling silly mortal process. and it sucks. and there are moments that REALLY suck. but i see the light, here and there. i know it ebbs and it flows, i know i know i know. that it won't get better, just different. i believe in the process. i trust that i'm right on track. but mostly i am just sad. today especially.

so i had my cry and wiped my tears. took the breath you take after sobbing deeply and looked around. and realized i was in a wendy's parking lot. and thought about a thanksgiving years ago when we lived with a baby duke in san francisco. and i was missing my family then, too. only it was because we moved a 1000 miles away, not 3000. and my father wasn't dead, just on the other end of the telephone.

and he asked me what we were going to do for thanksgiving and i told him we were going to wendy's. and he said oh honey, i hate to think of you guys eating at a fast food place on thanksgiving. and i chuckled. dad, i said, wendy is a friend of mine! we're eating at her house! and he chuckled.

so we spent that thanksgiving with wendy. wendy who had just the year earlier nursed the brand newly born duke while i spent two days receiving blood transfusions in the hospital barely able to sit up. when i couldn't, she did. and the re-telling of that story happened *just* today on a certain social networking site.

a wendy's parking lot. where i could most certainly get a cheeseburger. amazing. because if one was taking a quiz on sillymortalmama and got the question 'what is sillymortalmama's favorite food to eat after an emotional upset?' the answer to that would be 'a cheeseburger.'

ah life. sometimes it really is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

so i got out and got a cheeseburger and ate it in the parking lot of a wendy's on christmas eve so very far away from those i love the best with teary eyes and a broken heart.

and then, i felt better.

just like that.

so i wiped my mouth and dried my tears.

and then i drove home.

so it goes.

merry christmas.

be blessed,

x.

your moment(s) of zen.

(i am still talking about my loss. you have been warned.)

i believe in jackalopes. and the ability of the postal service still amazes me. how siri works i will never understand.

the fact that they put a man on the moon doesn't phase me. the fact that they can do that and still not be able to construct a plastic lid that fits over a paper cup properly does.

i don't believe in unicorns, but i believe that others believe in them and for them they exist. i do believe in dinosaurs, though. and i believe there are many higher powers and i will never ever stop believing there is a santa claus. and i believe in love at first sight and i believe it's never too late to find what you're looking for. and i believe that good people are capable of making terrible mistakes and still be good people.

i believe in forgiveness, but i don't believe in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth across the board. sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut.

i believe in miracles. however small. however subtle.

i believe in the rope. you know, the one that comes dangling down from out of the blue. right when you need it most.

i believe in the mountains and valleys of a life. i am in a valley. i've been trying to come to grips with this past year. i'm not even going to pretend that this is one of those posts where i have a low and then find the high. this isn't like that.

today the husband asked me if we have any envelopes. he's been trying to pay bills. he gathered all the bills. then he needed stamps. then he said he realized he had no envelopes and kept forgetting until he went to send the bills. the process was taking forever.

'that's like a depressed person. that's how it is being depressed. everything seems to have five steps and usually i just get to step 1.5 and stop. the process eventually repeats itself until it gets to 5. so. there's that.'

i believe this will pass. i know it will. but what i can't wrap my head around is how different everything is. and how it will never be the same again.

usually i love beating a dead horse. if it's a story i really like or a point i'm trying to make, etc. but this feels over done. maybe if the year hadn't already been difficult then losing my father wouldn't be so awful.

i know that isn't true. because it's awful no matter how you slice it.

but how do you move past that loss? how. really. and i tell myself the thing i tell everyone who asks me the same thing about a million other losses human suffer everyday...time and distance. that's all. keep going, keep breathing and moving and eventually you come out the other side. you really really do.

only right now, i can't see that. because i'm not the one doling out the soothing words. i'm the one with the broken heart. i'm the one asking how? why? and lamenting how unfair it is. it's SO UNFAIR.

again, like with the house i KNOW it's not personal. i KNOW this. the world works the way it does and it's ours to react how we do. nothing more.

but it just seems so wrong. for someone to die so quickly and randomly and just...die. to no longer exist.

it seems so wrong to feel so incredibly sad. to miss someone so much. to be without the person who raised you.

i believe, folks, we have reached #4 of the phases of grief.

and the only door prize here seems to be a bottle. either in liquid form or pills. thankfully i've rejected both or else grief would be the least of our worries.

so what do you do when you feel so sad and broken? well. for me i get up and i don't go back to bed. i walk. i take great pleasure if a song i love comes on the radio, if it's sad i turn it. i learned that the hard way. (BAM! i ran into the back of the woman in front of me. i was stopped. so was she. both trying to merge. i thought she went. but i was teary and not paying attention. no damage for either of us. she was really sweet about it. but my god.) i cook. because under normal circumstances it's something i truly enjoy. and because when we are sad and our hearts are fragile there is nothing better than feeding the cracks and the tears with good wholesome food. and i try to do the normal stuff a normal person does.

but the fall reminds me of my father. and the days and weeks before we left the farm for good. at once fall is so hopeful and yet so melancholy. made even more so this year.

what do you do when you just can't go back to bed and cover your head? and what do you do when you do get to go to bed and you wake up in the middle of the night? nearly every night? writing poems in your head about how grief is like a house of cards and you want it to stop trembling or fall already. just pick one. pick.

it's like a battle every day to make sure this is all kept afloat. and some days are easier than others. and some days it's just so hard and sad. and my father is around every corner and in every expression the duke makes. and some days i can think about him and smile and some days i cry. and some days it's both at once. and it's like a war of the emotions. and there is no victor. but i keep going because the alternative is to give up. and just be in this place. that i've been in. and that i don't want to be in forever. or anymore. and i can't do that to myself or to my family.

move forward without missing a step on the path. yeah.

i suppose i could be approaching this all wrong. i mean, a normal person goes to therapy and gets a prescription and gets some aid for the rough patches. normal people don't try to general patton their way out of their shit. soldier on, baby. don't stop. i am my father's daughter. i would have made a good cowboy. a soldier cowboy.

(oh and thank you, well meaning people for your suggestions and concern. while it looks weird, it works for me)

there's a point to all of this. really. and here it is; all of this time i've been wondering how do you move past the pain of tremendous loss? and i saw glimpses of it here and there this past year after losing the house. then my father died and i couldn't imagine how that would look down the line. how? so i got all mired in that. and it compounded the grieving.

and then yesterday i was listening to NPR and there was an interview with michael stipe and mike mills on the demise of REM.

michael stipe was clearly in a more lamenting and contemplative place in discussing the matter than mike mills was. mills was being very deferential and sensitive to the situation (and stipe's attitude) while still being pragmatic and positive.

"I've been to a couple of shows since we made the announcement, and going to shows was not easy," Stipe says. "It was hard to watch friends, or to watch people who I admired, up there performing and think to myself, 'Wow, I only know that now from here — from standing in the audience.' "

"But it's not necessarily gone forever — it just won't be with the same people," Mills says, addressing Stipe. "I don't see you stopping making music forever. You have too much of a good gift for that. You'll be up there doing it with somebody, and I'll be up there doing it with somebody else, and it won't be what we had, but it will be what we have."

and it won't be what we had, but it will be what we have.

and all of a sudden, there was the rope.

the one that comes from out of the blue when you least expect it.

things are never going to be what they were. my father isn't going to come back and i will never be serenaded to sleep by the frogs in the pond in the back pasture again.

and of course i knew this, i am not drowning in magical thinking. i just didn't know what to put in those spaces. you know, the empty ones. the ones that no longer hold my father or my former life. that's what i was wondering. what do i put there?

it turns out there really isn't anything *to* put in those spaces.

but there are new spaces to be created. and filled. when i'm ready.

it will never be what i had, but it will always be what i have. and that's going to have to be enough. and, eventually, it will be. it's not, right now, but it will be. and that's it. that's all i got. that's the best i can do. which doesn't feel like much, right now, but it's a lot better than getting mired down in the wondering. trying to fill the un-fillable. it's a start. something to grab. something to hold.

in the meantime, i bring you this installment of your moment(s) of zen. enjoy.

"If a man does his best, what else is there?" General George S. Patton

x.

move the cutting board.

i don't like my kitchen. i mean, i really don't like it.

which is not a good thing because i spend so much time in it.

it's not a bad kitchen. it's actually kinda cute. i guess. except that it was filthy when i moved in. which pissed me off. the cabinet full of liquor left behind mitigated that somewhat...but still.

plus, the rental ad touted it as a 'chef's kitchen.' so i was excited until i was standing in it and i was like, uhhh...chef's kitchen? chef who? chef boyardee?

i have always maintained it's not the kitchen, but the cook. if you can cook, you can cook anywhere. with any set up. but i REALLY do not like my kitchen.

because it's not my kitchen. in my house. 3200 miles away. and before you start rolling your eyes and stop reading because this is another maudlin post about how a sillymortalmama lost her house and can't let the fuck go...don't. because it's not. at least i think it's not. sometimes i don't know until the x. goes at the bottom what's going to come out. anyway...where was i?

oh yeah. okay, so i keep a running list in my head about all the shortcomings my kitchen now has. and i mutter them while i'm cooking in said kitchen. or hand washing the millionth tub of dishes that day (no dishwasher) or rescuing small items from the monster of a garbage disposal (not another measuring spoon! the tip top of the blender? great! sigh.) or battling ants and lack of space and the never learned to shop or cook bachelor sized refrigerator i could go on and on somebody slap me.

plus. it's charmless. my old kitchen had windows and light and space and the classical station was always on. in my kitchen now, it won't come in. the classical station. it's cold and the light is bad. plus the neighbors have full view of everything i do. but if i draw a shade then there's no light. somebody slap me. really.

okay. so yesterday i was sitting in the green chair in the corner by the window in the living room. thinking about how things are these days. how my life used to be. and how it is now. how i miss my house, my life before. and my dad. my family. and my friends. thanksgiving is coming and we are so far away. (it's okay. i'm still within time limits for grieving. for all of it. don't send the men in the white coats quite yet. unless of course they're here to clean. or tell me my hair looks pretty.)

i was thinking my favorite thoughts about how this house is too small and my office doesn't work and i can't find anything. good lord i do go on. and thinking about how i don't leave the house except to do things for other people. how i've lost my sparkle. and how hard it is without sparkle.

and i just sat there. wondering if this was it. you know, it. like this is your life from here on out. so get comfortable sister because you have arrived. in this house that's too small and in this life that's filled with loss. go you.

sigh.

(you know what's coming, right?)

and then i thought about something my cousin, dane posted on a certain social networking site earlier that day. i don't know why, as it didn't really fit with what was flitting about. but it kinda niggled in and held on so i went to the computer and looked it up.

*Positive and attractive feelings such as security and confidence are similar to their polar opposites insecurity and jealousy in that they often end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.*

not a new concept, but seen right when i needed it. holy shit. i'm fucking my own self up. yeah, those things happened. and it hurts. still. sure. life's rough. tell me about it. and i do tell y'all about it. but if you spend your time telling yourself how rough it is, well that's just dumb. crap. i know this. i do. why do i keep having to re-LEARN it. SOMEBODY SLAP ME.

i live here in this small house. in this life. i live here now. i won't have a different kitchen anytime soon. i won't see my family for thanksgiving. or go a day without missing people anytime soon. it's not going to happen. so what am i going to do about it?

indeed.

so i thought about my kitchen. why i focused on that i don't know, but that's what flitted in. and i wondered how in the world can i make it work. HURDLE. big hurdle.

and i swear the hand of the divine reached out and smacked me right in the ass. it hit me. (i mean the idea, not the metaphorical hand of the divine.) i got up i went into the kitchen and i grabbed the cutting board from where it always is for prep and i grabbed the onions and the garlic and the chilies from where they are by the oils and the cooking utensils the knives and the stove.

and i switched them.

i put the cutting board by the stove. i put the onions and garlic and chilies where the cutting board was.

i switched them.

and i discovered that prepping where i was was making me crazy. because there's no dishwasher so there are always dishes on the counter by where the prep space was. and no matter how often i do dishes it's ALWAYS a chaotic jumble right there. and the onions and garlic and chilies just spilled out onto the other counter making it impossible to use the space for anything but as a place to have STUFF.

so i switched them.

and i discovered a world of calm at the other counter. free of chaos. closer to the stove. walking across the kitchen with what i prepped to the stove was making me crazy. and it was stupid. why did i not see it before?

because i set that kitchen up in a haze of loss. through tears and irritation.

and i never revisited that. never once saw what i had done, and was continuing to do to myself.

and you know what else? with the onions and garlic and chilies gone the classical station comes in loud and clear. i kid you not. isn't that something? if i could make shit up like this i would. and make millions.

and then the husband moved the under cabinet light to the new prep space and it's the best lighting we've ever had. and it was a pleasure to be in the kitchen last night. and this morning making breakfast and preparing lunches with dvorak on the radio i actually found myself humming.

i don't hum.

sparkle. sparkle.

i'm fond of saying it's the little things. that the big things are never really what do you in. because you can see them coming. and you HAVE to deal with them. so you just do. it's the little things that do you in. swooping in totally out of the blue and leaving you lying broken on the floor.

like a stupid cutting board in the wrong place.

and it does make me wonder where else i can 'move the cutting board.' i mean shit, where to start, right? every one of us has that running list in our heads. but what if instead of letting it hang us up because we'll never tick everything off, what if we abandon the idea of ticking those items off altogether? what if instead of ticking we go for tweaking? just a bit here. a bit there. you aren't going to have a different kitchen soon? fine. move the cutting board.

it seems simplistic, sure. but the moment we decide to let our lives be about the 'positive and attractive feelings,' quit muttering our lists aloud, let our lives be about the small tweaks to get us to the next step, about tweaking *instead* of ticking, that's the moment we don't define our lives by 'this moment.'

life is made up of a string of moments. no one moment defines us. so why should we let it?

we shouldn't.

sparkle. sparkle.

so that's my story. i moved the cutting board. one foot in front of the other. lather rinse repeat.

x.

loss, language, and a love letter.

be warned. i go off into the weeds in this one. really. i make blanket generalizations and assume a lot about what people do and do not do anymore. so if you have anything better to do i'd suggest doing it.

it started with andy rooney and morley safer on 60 minutes. okay, it started with my father dying...but the actual can't keep back the choking sobs started with andy rooney's farewell interview on 60 minutes a few weeks back.

i know what you're thinking, she's not going off into the weeds, she's smoking weed! (and yes, people still say weed. i know because i asked.) but bear with me. or go clean your fridge. it's up to you.

anyway, i couldn't get enough of listening to the two of them talk. the language. the timbre of their voices. like discovering full fat butter after growing up on tubs of country crock. and i got up and left the room and went to the bathroom and shut the door and started to sob.

people don't speak like that anymore.

and then i heard harry belafonte being interviewed on npr. and i got the same feeling. like i could listen to him forever. again, the richness of his language, the thoughtful way he spoke, you could feel his heart in his words. and i tried to keep the tears back while i made my way through traffic.

people don't speak like that anymore.

my father spoke like that.

i miss that about my father.

i miss my father.

he drove me crazy when he monologued when i was younger, but as i got older i appreciated our conversations. well, mostly. he could still drive me crazy. and during our last visit i spent it mostly listening to him speak. about everything and nothing. just soaking it in. and as his days here on earth waned i appreciated hearing from him on the telephone. just hearing his voice.

i wish i had recorded him.

my father could hold a whole conversation with himself and still keep you engaged. he knew words and meanings and phrases no one else did, and he strung them together so beautifully. and his voice. it was deep and rich, and he knew how to pause, and to dip, and to draw out and it was like a perfectly coordinated dance.

people don't speak like that anymore.

people don't use language anymore. they don't have conversations. they just talk. text. type. they don't pull words out of their head in mid conversation and float them out there in hopes that they convey what they mean them to. typing and spell check and delete makes everything more crafted and less interesting. at least less spontaneous.

not my father, language was and remained incredibly important to him. he got it from his own mother, this idea that words always meant something. everything. the idea that you don't just toss words about, and that you don't use a cheap and easy word when there are so many magnificent ones to choose from. that you don't abuse language. ever. even as he was being admitted into a strange nursing home room that he was certain to know would be the last room he would know, my younger sister and i were admonished for our use of language with the nurse. he felt we were in poor taste and being crass.

and whenever i think about this i can't hold back the sobs. because i won't hear him again.

and i think about kids these days, and young adults and how no one really has conversations anymore. and i know there is merit in the use of screens and text, and that life changes, and we adapt, but i can't help but mourn real live conversation.

but who am i to talk. pun intended. when i lost my house and had to move so far i all but stopped speaking on the telephone. and since my father died even more so. i can't think of what i would say if someone asked how i was doing. i can't find one more way to say 'okay' and not start sobbing and put us all in that awkward moment. people get tired of grief. they don't know what to do with it. and so i don't force the issue. i figure if i jaw on about in my blog it's their fault if they read. ;)

which makes it even more lonesome to be so far away from family and friends, people with whom i talked with. not only on the phone, but in actual person, on holidays, and during bbqs at the farm. i don't have that here. a bit, here and there, but not on the regular. like it used to be. and the more the year catches up with me and the more grief i bear the less i want to speak.

but i remember conversation. especially when i was younger. and there were few responsibilities and no social media and no one ever lost a house or a parent and hanging out and talking with friends was the best time ever. real live conversation. jesus, i sound old.

and i remember one of my very favorite people to have a conversation with was my friend kelly. he and i used to talk.all.the.time. sometimes for hours. there was this little park in our hometown we had our own nickname for and we'd go there. and if it was nice we'd head out to where the park rose into a little knoll and we'd pick a spot just shy of the top and we were off. if it was cold we'd sit in his car. it didn't matter. even if all we had was 10 minutes we'd take it.

we talked about everything and nothing. like you do when you're 16 and 17 and 18 and the world couldn't be more confusing and amusing. and if we weren't at the park we'd talk on the phone.

all of my friends were fabulous conversationalists, but kelly was my favorite. we were actually very different people, but he wasn't afraid to go to the places people are afraid to go in conversation because it's so unformed or new or scary. to explore those differences. and when you are a girl teenager or a boy teenager that's everything. because it meant being able to let go of some of the guard. and going to that place of being so sure you knew it all and yet none of it made any sense. and we could admit that. so, we did. and we'd try and figure it all out with words.

those conversations lasted for years, and then when we were apart we wrote letters. i hadn't thought about that in so long. but kelly was also my most constant letter writing companion.

and in those conversations and letters i learned what i thought about the world. and how that shaped who i was. was going to be. when you have everything floating around inside and you have someone who will not only listen, but respond, it's such a gift. especially someone so gifted with language. someone who understands the importance language.

and writing to kelly was some of the first 'writing' i did. i think because i always respected him as a person and a musician i was trying to make it to that level of being 'interesting enough.' and i found i had a voice when i wrote. plus, in some ways i suppose i was trying to impress him. and so i tapped into the writer in me to do so. all because i was under the misguided notion that he was cooler than me. we have since worked that misconception out. ;)

and yes, he talked about girls. and i talked boys. and we gossiped worse than two women over a backyard fence.

i always say my friends in high school saved me. i think my father thought so, too. he was grateful for my friendships, for what they gave me, and he loved my friends. he especially loved kelly. he once told me that kelly was the kind of boy he'd love for me to marry.

kelly and i did not date or grow up to marry. but there's something very sweet and precious about close friendships at that age. opposite sex or same sex friendships. i recently read an interview with jonah hill and he's talking about the sleeping bag scene at the end of 'superbad' (which is my favorite, BTW) and he said "The great romance of your youth is your best friend at that age." and i am inclined to agree.

i am feeling especially fragile these days. and anything that reminds me that there was a 'before' to all of 'now' is so dear to me. and i don't want to stay so long here where it's sad and i have a hard time keeping the tears back. but i'm here and while i'm here i want to be reminded that things used to be sweet and precious. to be reminded of my father in the positive. not just gone. because it helps.

which brings this full circle, i hope...the other day kelly told me he was going to go by the house i grew up in. just drive by. a bit of a pilgrimage. and until he said that's what he was going to do i didn't know that that's what needed to be done. but of course it does. i've always said that kelly knew me before i knew myself. and it's because we sat on that grassy knoll for so many hours talking about everything and nothing at all.

dear kelly,

thank you. it made all the difference in the world.

and when you drive by the house pour one out for my father, wouldja?

with love,

x.

pretty smart.

when i was in high school i believed i was not smart, not pretty, and i was pretty shy. i was surrounded by pretty, smart, and outgoing friends, so i covered this up with bravado, sarcasm, wit (no shortage of ego there ;) ), and really really short skirts.

why? because my father, who raised me, didn't ever really tell me i was. not in general, and not on the days it was obvious i was suffering with some sling or arrow of adolescence. not just for the sheer parental praise of it. not ever.

thus i spent my high school years with, at time, crippling self-esteem that extended well after high school.

before you feel sorry for how i felt about myself, don't. we, and by we i mean me and my younger self, worked that out. it got better.

but in high school? not so much. i couldn't figure out why i was in the advanced classes if i wasn't smart? (for everything except math. stupid math)

my grades were crap, even though i fully understood the material (for everything except math. stupid math) and at times was so bored i couldn't keep my eyes open. but i was not raised by someone who paid a lot, or really any, attention to grades, and test scores, and attendance. my father was so busy trying to keep the lights on and food in the house and his own demons at bay that i was on my own.

my father loved me and he did the best he could, but parental praise and educational participation were not his strong suits. which is funny because i always knew he was my biggest fan and the smartest guy in the room.

but, if you grow up incredibly shy, and grow up never hearing, 'you're pretty, you're smart' by the ones who love you best how do you know?

you don't. and you believe that you are neither of those things. and you proceed accordingly. and are graded accordingly. and you measure the boys who like you based on that they like you at all, and that brings your self-esteem up. and then you add in short skits and a smart mouth and if you weren't basically a good girl what a recipe for disaster, right?

thank god my low self-esteem 'mistakes' were made MUCH later. you know, in the days when you know a little more than you did in high school. making ALL the difference in the world. still not always pretty, but keeping you out of the places you shouldn't be in in the first place.

all right. where were we? oh. yeah. all about me. i SWEAR I HAVE A POINT. i do. really.

okay, so it took a LONG time for me to understand that how i felt was not how it really was. when it finally dawned on me that what i never heard from my father DIDN'T automatically mean the opposite was true, it was a light bulb turned on.

the reason i tell you all of this?

the duke is failing math.

and yes, they are related.

see, okay, he's getting a high D. so not technically 'failing.' but c'mon, there's not a lot of difference between a D and an F. well, except if you're me and it's two days before graduation and you just learned you failed the geometry class in your SECOND ATTEMPT taking it and you are most certainly not going to graduate and add to that your mother is already in town for the graduation and how can you NOT FREAKING GRADUATE YOU DUMBASS so you cry to your teacher with big wailing gasping sobs and he takes pity on you and gives you a D and you pass and now you can actually graduate and no one is the wiser. then. yes. it makes a difference.

in the duke's case, it's in a sophomore advanced algebra honors class. so. it's a tough class. but still, none of us can understand it? it doesn't add up. pardon the pun.

so there's that and here's a recent snippet of conversation:

'the kids in my history class are all really smart.'

'yeah? well. you're smart, too.'

'i am? i mean, i know i'm not dumb, but they are like, really REALLY smart.'

'um. you're really smart, too.'

'i am? like how?'

i just looked at him and he was getting his backpack together and the bus was going to come and so we left it at that.

when he left i was left with the thought that the duke does not think he's smart! he's in mostly honors, doing well in EVERYTHING but his math class and he doesn't think he's smart? how can that be?

because he was never part of the public school system with its segregated classes of 'smart' and 'regular.' because he never had several teachers at once telling him or demonstrating to him that this was the case. and because he never got progress reports or report cards or awards or spelling bees or labels from the school and from other kids. because when you homeschool there is no honor roll. because he wasn't ever part of that process he never had a clue.

did i tell him he was smart? sure. but not on the regular. because we spent so much time together and he did so well on all his work, and i would tell him he did well. and help him when he didn't. and because he understood what i was saying to him and what he was reading and he taught himself geometry and algebra and did high school latin and greek and french.

i just assumed he knew? he finally started getting graded in 7th & 8th grade and i would tell him he got all As, but that was a pretty abstract concept to a homeschooler. and because i never emphasized grades as much as comprehension and participation and dedication to learning, i guess it was even more abstract.

it was just never an issue.

so he goes to school. and he's in these classes. and he looks around. and based on what kids around him say about who is and who is not 'smart,' and now there's As AND A pluses and minuses and Bs and Cs and Ds and Fs and everyone is so hell bent on grades and percentages and splitting hairs about pluses and minuses and suddenly he doesn't think he's smart. or at least 'as smart' as the other kids in his class. even though they are ALL in the same class. he's lost some confidence.

and it's impacting him. even though it couldn't be further from the truth.

so. i got out every year-end cumulative test result from every year he took the test starting in the 3rd grade. every year in may i would take him for a two day standardized test proctored at a big creepy church in the middle of nowhere. and every june they would send the results and i would look at them and file them away. so i got those test results out. and when he came home i spread them out in front of him. and he looked at them. and he saw how highly he scored in everything every year. grades and grades above the present grade he was in. by 7th grade he was scoring post high school in every single subject.

i'm not telling you this to crow about my kid. i'm telling you this because i never told him. and i think i probably should have.

he was dumfounded. again, pardon the pun.

'why didn't you ever show me these? whenever i asked how i did you just said i did well.'

'i didn't show you these for the same reason i wouldn't have shown you these if you did poorly. they are a measure of a time. a few days in the month of may. they aren't the whole picture of who you are as a person or a student.'

'yeah. but they're pretty FREAKIN' awesome!'

'yes. you did well.'

'WELL? i'm like totally smart!'

i may have created a monster.

but at least he's a monster with a new healthy dose self-esteem that will hopefully serve him well. and hopefully in algebra. and hopefully soon. (he's got a plan in place. someone to help. they offered to move him down but he declined. 'i've already taken geometry. why would i take again just for a good grade? and moving to a lower algebra 2 class would mess up my whole schedule. so, i'm just going to do it.' good for him. fingers crossed)

look, being a teenager is so tough. just 'being' a teenager. and then you start measuring yourself against everyone around you. and if you find you come up short, and who doesn't, really, you grab and reach for whatever makes sense. to keep you afloat. to bolster you.

if the duke starts wearing really really short skirts i'm going to begin to worry.

and add to all this that pesky frontal lobe. throwing any logical reasonable thinking out the window when you need it the most. so you NEED your parents to believe in you. to support you. to tell you you are pretty and you are smart. and i'm not saying my father didn't believe in me, quite the opposite, but he never told me what i NEEDED to hear.

the duke is different. he knew even before seeing those test scores that he wasn't dumb. that he had the chops, and that he was doing well. BUT he was letting his perception that he couldn't possibly be as smart as his peers affect his performance. at least in math, and who knows how far it might extend as time and pressure wears on. simply because he hadn't grown up being told that 'this is what you are. you are smart.'

all i know is it's pretty darn hard to sit in a room full of people and feel like an idiot. to hang out with pretty friends and feel not pretty. for four years solid. to know there is something there, to you, in you, that is *more* than what you think of yourself, but not have access to it. just because you believe this one thing. just because you never heard differently.

i don't want that for the duke. i don't want him strutting around like he's gods gift to the educational system either, but i'd rather he feel empowered. and we'll see where that takes him. either way, i'm a proud mama. no matter the grade.

and yes, i told him that. he's been hearing that for years. :)

so there you have it.

and just in case no one ever told YOU;

you are pretty.

you are handsome.

and you are smart.

x.

your moment(s) of zen.

so wingman is sick. and i ask him where? he says his head. and i ask him how does it feel? he says his head 'feels sick.'

now. that may seem simplistic as he is 10, but i've always taught my kids to tell me exactly 'where' it hurts and 'how' it hurts. in words that are easily understandable by everyone. detailed description, however simplistic.

like the word 'stomachache' doesn't always cover what is actually going on. the stomach is a broad area to a child. where? point to it. how? do you feel seasick? do you feel like you've been punched? does it feel pinchy? or growly?

same with the word 'headache.' etc.

i learned that if they could tell me exactly where and how using language they understood then i could administer the best remedy. biggest complaints first and go from there. basic parenting.

okay, i have a point. i'm getting to it.

so his head doesn't hurt, it doesn't feel fuzzy, it just feels off. 'sick.' which i understand. even if i can't put my finger on it. he's not warm enough to worry about a temperature, he feels fine otherwise. but the BAD disposition percolating the last few days coupled with the glassy eyes this morning and his complaint leads me to believe we're on to something. so i sent him to bed and started a big pot of homemade chicken soup.

if he had said, 'i have a headache,' and if i had left it at that, he'd have some children's pain reliever in him and we'd be doing school. but that's not 'healing.' and being asked exactly how you feel and describing exactly how it feels is powerful to a person. to be asked. to be heard.

the beauty and power of language.

i was thinking about this as i pulled out the chicken. pasture raised, kosher, no antibiotics, etc. the words printed on the package gave me a specific view of the chicken i held in my hands. they told me that because of how it was raised, when this chicken sat in the pot for an hour with covered with water and a bit of vinegar added before cooking there would be more minerals and calcium to draw from the bones creating a healthier broth. and that because of how it was raised this chicken would produce more gelatin and give the soup more of the healing oomph that gelatin provides. everything from fighting the common cold to fighting delusions. a one stop wonder of healing! (that is, if you believe what you read about gelatin and pasture raised meat and chicken soup and if you're not a vegan or vegetarian ;) )

i make this soup with love. and when i tell wingman, 'i will make you a pot of soup' and when i hand wingman the bowl and say to him, 'i hope you feel better soon' he will feel the love in the soup and he will hear the love in my words. and that as much as anything will work to heal what ails him.

the power of language to have the power to heal.

which brings me to my point. i swear.

the duke told me the other day, chuckling, that his friend said to him that cupcakes are just 'slutty muffins.'

which is actually pretty funny.

but to which i said

'i don't like that word. slutty.'

'well, i don't either. i just thought it was funny.'

'it is. but you understand how derogatory the word slutty is, right?'

'yeah. i mean, i don't use it or anything.'

'but you did just now.'

'yeah.'

okay, i wasn't trying to be a bitch about it. (aaannnnddd. there's that word. bitch. a whole other story. sigh. oh language, you are nothing but trouble some days.) i told him i thought it was funny. and i'm inappropriate A LOT. i get offensive humor. to a point. i laugh. but only UP to a point.

BUT

i am also 40 years old.

the duke is 14.

so the other day if i had just laughed at the joke and left it at that then the chances of 'slutty' becoming part of the duke's lexicon would be higher than it is today. and he didn't ask for my opinion, but he got it. because i am a woman and because i am his mother.

and because language has the power to heal. as much as it has the power to hurt.

the duke is just figuring out how the world works. how being a 14 year old boy works. figuring out how what we SAY shapes how others SEE us. how what we HEAR & SEE shapes how we VIEW the world. language. words. images.

he's figuring out how this puzzle fits together. and how girls fit in at all.

and what drives that process? parents, friends, media.

okay, parents and friends have a LOT of influence, but let's face it, the media wins this race based on sheer face time and the ability to catch and release our young people more times in a day than any other thing or person can. to 'hook' them. over and over and over again. in just one 24 hour period. HA! yes. i just used a fishing reference as metaphor. perhaps successfully. i am as surprised as you are.

anyhow, this is for most of our young men and woman. not all. but most. and the media is driven by numbers and figures and bottom lines. and the bottom line is that because of this, the portrayal of women in the media is more often than not not terribly positive. and oftentimes downright exploitative.

and if the young men are getting most of their information about women from the media how is that going to work? because you and i know what's out there. this is in no way a new conversation. what's out there is what's always been out there, only getting more outrageous. more intense and shocking. condensing women to boobs, hips, lips. and no argument from me that these are indeed intriguing female qualities, but they are NOT AT ALL ALL THERE IS to a woman.

but how do the young men find this out? how do they get the other side of the story?

which brings us to the joke about the slutty muffins. which, is, like i said, pretty funny...but...

all right. i have a point. i do. and it's this. i think that language is very powerful. and i think young people need to be more educated about the world around them before they just fall into using certain words. that the images presented to our young people should be less condensed and more balanced. homemade soup made with love vs. canned soup: just add water. how is that food? to nourish and heal and grow? okay, i'm falling into judgment and more bad metaphors, but you get the picture.

these days it seems our young people are way more sophisticated than they are mature. maybe it's always been that way, maybe i'm just old. but i'm willing to bet that's not entirely the case. and i'm willing to bet it's creating a huge deficit of actual understanding. about members of the opposite sex, the same sex, about who we are. as individuals and a collective culture. about what we are capable of. all of us. even the ones with the boobs, hips, lips.

so. when the duke came home yesterday i showed him the following video. (props to my friend jodi for directing me to it.) because it has nothing and everything to do with the joke about the slutty muffins. because it's timely and it's a continuation of a long and developing conversation. because women are so intelligent and so capable and so beautiful and so fabulous and they are almost always more than what the media tells us they are. and i know that. and you know that. and i want my son to KNOW THAT, TOO.

so we continue the conversation. the one that begins with 'say, MA MA.' and continues with 'hot! ouch!' and 'please.' and 'thank you.' and 'i'm making you a pot of soup.' and 'i don't like that word.'

it is in that spirit i bring you this installment of your moment(s) of zen. it's a bit long, but well worth it when you get a spare 8 minutes. and if you happen to know a young woman or young man share it with them, too. (though, in fair warning, there are images that could be considered inappropriate viewing for teens in some families. the images are in context, but they are there. so. proceed accordingly.)

x.

dear person i like to pray to: this does not mean i think it's a good time to get knocked up. that would be never again. amen.

they tell you in the books about how your teenager will change. they mention the moods and the frontal lobe and drugs and sex and rock and roll. they tell you how hard it will be and how to be cautious in your approach and how to be aggressive in your pursuits and how to bide your time and get through it and to listen and to provide and to support and to be present and on and on and on.

but they don't tell you how much you will miss your child. just simply miss him.

oh you know they're not that same little kid you used to know. and you love the teen they are now. you know that they won't initiate as many of the hugs, you know they will want to be with their friends more than you, that weekends are best when spent with their group. you were a teenager once. you know how it is.

and it's natural. and it happens every day. but now it's happening to me.

and i miss my kid.

i eat breakfast with him and dinner with him and hang out with him when he wants company for homework. and i'm not there when he doesn't want me there.

we make time to do family things.

but it simply is not the same.

because it used to be different.

and i know it's just a transition.

and things will change.

and there is a new normal on the horizon.

and it will be golden.

but right now, i miss my kid.

and they never mentioned this part. not once.

i had a baby. and now i have a teenager.

and some days i just need the world to be a little patient and let me catch up.

x.

take care of your eyes.

my friend ingrid had a dream about me. i was splitting open milkweed pods and letting the wind take them.

this describes my grief as of late.

instead of crying when i want to i will feel it come and i will send it up and away. i don't know why this is. i am a champion crier. i cry at anything. and yet, i don't want to cry. be sad. think about it.at.all.

i am choosing to believe this is normal.

i've been thinking about my father a lot lately. i feel his presence with me even as i am completely certain i'm not fully understanding that he is actually gone.

there are things i need to do that aren't getting done. there is personal work and paper work and house work and LOTS of things i need to do that aren't getting done. this is depression. i know this. depression and grief. i am allowing it. even as i can't really stop it. we have an understanding.

yesterday we went to REI to buy sunglasses for me. i sat on my beloved smiths more than a year and a half ago and have lived with cheap/free crappy ones since then. my cheap gas station ones were stolen (nice work, idiot. how are those crappy sunglasses working out for you?) and my free with a box of vitamin ones i somehow LOST. i still don't know how. if i didn't know better i would think the husband lost them for me so i would be FORCED to get new sunglasses.

but i couldn't put it off any longer. and now i know why i did.

when i sat on my beloved smiths i was still estranged from my father. and then i wasn't. and then he got sick. and then he died. and i knew the place i would be going for sunglasses was REI to replace the smiths. not online, not to another store, because REI was the place to go. i lived in seattle nearly 20 years. that's just the place you go.

my father worked at REI for years and years. he fitted packs and sold stoves and recommended or didn't the fun gadgets and charmed customers with his tales and his twinkly eyes so that you couldn't quite figure out if he was pulling your leg or not. he won the coveted sales award one year. he was good. it was his element. he was even featured in a television report about REI. we joked he was the 'face' of REI. he was 'that' guy you see in every REI.

and, he sold the sunglasses. he loved to fit glasses to faces, he would flirt and cajole and the customers ate it up.

of course i didn't want to go buy sunglasses. didn't want to go to REI. not then. not now.

but i was out of sunglasses and out of options.

and when i went to the REI yesterday, across the country from the one where he worked, there was a guy my father's age working with the sunglasses. 'that' guy. REI is like that wherever you are. the same young girls in clothing, the older handsome woman in kayaks, floaters in books and maps. i drifted over to the cheaper glasses (made by smith at least, but under a different name and not as good.) because that's just how i roll. even as i heard my father's voice and felt the husband's push towards the smiths. 'take care of your eyes' my father would say. 'why would you put cheap glasses over your eyes for protection? they're your most valuable asset? take care of your eyes.'

i just wanted to grab a pair and get out of there. i hated the shape of my stupid face in the stupid mirror and i hated the selection of stupid smiths that weren't the ones i used to have that they didn't make anymore. it all felt scratchy and wrong. i felt teary.

and then i asked the guy working the counter a question about a pair and i swear to god he had to hold up the glasses to his ONE GOOD EYE and try to read what was on the side! he couldn't SEE! okay, a bit, from far away, with ONLY one eye.

a sunglass salesman who couldn't see.

this would have been one of my father's literary characters. this would be the kinda guy he'd make up and create a life for. imagine that, x, he would say. the guy sells glasses and HE CAN'T SEE!

all right. okay. hi, dad. i cracked a smile. i let my shoulders down a bit and ended up with the glasses i first saw, i liked them and they fit my face, and we left. i felt better. and OH MY GOD i cannot believe how much more relaxed my eyes were! i cannot believe i've been living with crappy sunglasses for so long. TAKE CARE OF YOUR EYES. i get it. i got it.

and then later when we were checking out at the brazilian market right there, on the ground, there was a penny. and then another. and another. they weren't there before, i swear they weren't. and then they were. just like that. all over. the duke and wingman and i kept finding them 'look i found another one!' nearly 10 in all. in just one spot. we were giddy. it's Pops! they said. yes, it is. it's Pops.

i guess this is how grief goes. you are sad and then you're not and then you're sad again. you take comfort in the signs however they come. lost sunglasses, lucky pennies. humor. you let it all sink in. you go with it. it's okay. or, it will be. you pick up the lucky penny, the wish having changed, but still there just the same.

you take care of your eyes and your heart does the rest. it distills the best of the person that you can remember and you take little sips here and there to sustain the momentum of moving forward.

x.