Talk Feeleez

Life Outside a Facebook Profile

Lately I've been repeating the phrase "trust the process of my life" and/or "it's all related" because, for whatever reason, I have been yearning for a tidy life. No, not a clean house, although I always want and crave that, but a life that fits into the byline on my Facebook profile.

Natalie Christensen. Studied at: Harvard. Works at: Blah Blah and Blah Blah, Attorneys at Law

See how that life fits into one sentence? 

But that's not my life. And of course it doesn't matter if one's life is concise, not one little bit, not even for a millisecond, but that doesn't mean that my mind hasn't spent some time thinking a concise life isn't desirable. Minds will do that, take you down a long twisty road of thought that has absolutely no bearing on one's happiness or reality. Lately I'll catch my mind grabbing at the threads of my world - Feeleez, blog writing, parent consulting, art/illustration, Fairy Food, parenting, home-making, lover/partner, homeowner - and trying to mush them into a basket, or weave them awkwardly, forcefully into a coherent object.

Why? I don't know.

I told my friend Rachel Turiel that although not enrolled in school I want a Senior Thesis show, right this second, so that I could hang all of my endeavours on the white gallery walls with titles and dates and a clear artist statement. I'd hang a show title over the whole thing, something that tied it all together. 

I suppose this yearning is for my own sanity. Like when things go crazy at our house and everyone's fighting I always draw my hair into a ponytail and start picking up toys. It's a jerk response, a desire to instill some sort of order to the chaos. In trying to organize my life into a succinct Facebook byline I am attempting to wrap a hair tie around the whole thing, add some coordinating element.

But that's not who I am.

That's not who I am.

How can "who I am" ever be the source of angst?

The other day my friend Romy and I coordinated kids and dogs so that her dog would get exercise, my kid didn't have to take a walk in the cold, and I got to move my body. When I returned to her house, with her dog, to pick up my child, Romy was going through her wedding items, letters and lists from that time of her life. I fell right into that activity. The letters from her mom and brother and sister! Sweet words to be read the morning of the big day. Tear jerkers. We then graduated to the photo album and spent most of a wonderful afternoon in that wedding world.

I liked, again, how concise it all was. She was unmarried, then she was married, then they had children. 

I spent longer than I'd like to admit wondering why I didn't go that straight-forward route, with a clear before and after, a trail you could easily trace. Then I remembered. Oh yeah! I didn't want that. Nathan has asked me to marry him twenty times and every time I say yes. And yet, we also make no plans to get married. And when we fell in love Nathan had an infant and a three-year old. Our life has never matched the old nursery rhyme - First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes teh baby in the baby carriage...

And what's wrong with that?

Nothing. Of course nothing.

That's why I keep reminding myself to trust the process of my life. Who I am is perfectly fine. I didn't follow a straight path because I am not drawn to that kind of path. I like to have many interests bubbling at once. I like to mother and create and write and then do a completely different combination the next day. This really doesn't fit in a Facebook profile. My thirty second elevator speech that describes my life just wouldn't fit in a thirty second window of opportunity. We'd have to keep on riding to the penthouse to squeeze it in.

So I return to trusting, not only who I am but also who I was before. The girl that studied veterinary science and then switched at the last second to art. The girl that could ace a chemistry test in the morning and then build strange abstract enormous sculptures in the afternoon. The young lady that worked her butt off in grad school only to bail out halfway through to work in a bakery and move to Cuba. The woman who moved to Montana on a lark. The woman who fell in love so completely as to never look back and the woman who dove into raising another person's children without even a glance at self-preservation. The woman who dreams big in several directions at once. 

I am trusting that person, the one who is learning that tending to several loves simmering at once is just as worthy as one who can sum themselves up in twenty words or less. 

I guess that trust is the only pony-tail holder I'm going to get.

My Average Story

New goal: be average.

I'm trying to lead an average life.

My life isn't really average at all of course. I am pretty darn awesome and fortunate and things are shiny and bright. 

BUT

I noticed something lately. Somehow or other I've gotten it into my head that in order to see myself as accomplished, or for others to see me that way, I need to achieve things by way of struggle. For some reason if it comes easily I don't value it as much and I assume others don't either. If it is effortless, it's nothing to "write home about", it's ho hum, it's average.

I blame my hometown for part of it. Santa Cruz is a complicated place and hard to describe but one thing I know is that there is a premium on Cool. Cool is everything. Each person of course has their own understanding of what is Cool, but nevertheless that whole town is aiming for that singular goal. So that's part of it I guess. I am always factoring in the outside view of my life. How Cool does it look from without? It is like I am telling my story as I'm living it. So, to grow up, make good money, drive a mini-van and raise kids? BORING plot. Decidedly un-cool.

BUT if I make good money by doing something admirable or chic? Not boring, maybe Cool.

If I drive a euro mini-van? Imported, definitely not American-made? Cool-er.

If I raise kids in some unorthodox, out of mainstream way like a farm or urban co-op and dress them in only hand-knit woolens? Cool-er.

As I look back on that last part I'm not totally convinced. Maybe everyone has a hometown pressure they feel. Maybe the place you went to high school, with it's magnifying glass that studies the coolness of everything - from a pair of earrings to locker placement, always sticks with a person. Who knows.

In any case these are just surface, cliche examples. None of them involve struggle. That is a deeper level I only recently discovered. I have the topical layer of living in a Cool fashion, and in my life's journey I have added the struggle layer. It looks like this:

If I make a lot of money after having NO MONEY that's an admirable and good story.

If I have a solid marriage even though we might face INCREDIBLE CHALLENGES that is really something.

If I build a fence completely on my own WITHOUT ANY HELP or carpentry skills, then it is a worthwhile tale.

The struggle part is in caps. Those are the parts I'd like to edit out. I want value in my life and for some godforsaken reason I've attached struggle to that value. WTF? Because it is a twisted mental maze of reasoning that got me to this point, the easiest way I can imagine to shortcut the struggle angle is to tell myself I am shooting for ordinary, average. If I am average maybe I'll just have money without having to build this dazzling tale of poverty leading up to the riches. If I am aiming for a run-of-the-mill life I could just build a fence and fricking love it that I got some help in the process.

See what I mean? If I remove the struggle-to-add-value angle what I have left over is just happiness and the achievement of my goals. Why have I made it so hard?

This is why I have been going on and on about stories. The ones we tell ourselves about our kids often are the basis of most of our struggles with them. But what about the ones we tell ourselves?

I have been telling myself this particular struggle/value story for a long, long time. 

If I travel to Cuba, ALL BY MYSELF, EVEN THOUGH I'M SCARED, that will be good.

If I move somewhere where I KNOW NOT A SOUL, that will be a hard growing experience, that will be good.

As I look back almost every decision I have made in my life involves going down the more difficult (and in my mind - value-worthy) road. Why???? Why not move somewhere where I know lots of people and surround myself with my favorite humans in the whole world? Why not travel with a friend instead? Why not make good money any ol' way that feels good to me? Why not aim for a marriage that is simply rewarding and loving, instead of rewarding despite?

Why not go easy on my self? No one is watching. No one cares. No one is keeping any sort of value tally other than myself.

So I am aiming for average. It was hard at first. I thought it meant a life of dullness. But then I tried it and it has been wonderful!!!! We went to a wedding and sat at a table of Nathan's theater friends. I started to search my brain for charming witticisms. I cast about for ways to dazzle them, to show them I am worthy of Nathan's partnership (since I'd never hung out with them before). I wanted to not be boring and I was certainly willing to struggle in order to prove myself so. Then I remembered!

To be average or ordinary meant I could just sit at the table and speak when it occurred to me to talk! To not be looking from that out-of-myself perspective of judgement meant that I could just people watch. To aim for average meant that I ran in the grass with Echo for most of the night. Liberation!

Aiming for average actually frees me up to be anything but average, of course. Achieving goals without struggle is praise-worthy indeed. But that's not the point. The point is is that I get to have the things I want without a side dish of difficulty. 

One side-effect that has taken some getting used to is that my stories are a bit more dull. I like telling stories. Stories about myself, stories to myself, stories about myself to others. It has been a fun thing in my life. But I think I want general happiness and achievement more than a rags to riches, triumph over struggle, kind of story. When I run into my girlfriends and I have nothing entertaining to say, instead of panicking and looking for some kind of you-won't-believe-this struggle-story I remember, and pat myself on the back. I'm going for average! If I have nothing to say it means I am simply living my life, living a happy life, and the only reason I don't have a tall tale to tell is because I am now circumventing the struggle side of my life.

And then there are times that I do have a struggle story but now I am using my mental strength to not tell it. For instance the hamster did actually die and I had a few paragraphs lined up about my direct involvement in her death, but I am not telling it. It may sound extreme to apply my new formula to a hamster but if I don't start there, with the small stuff, I'll lose track of my goal.

We create what we think. So if I think I have to struggle in order to get what I want, I will struggle. If I want what I want without a difficult trek to that peak I've got to start thinking differently, I've got to start telling a different story.

Last example. I built a fence with a double gate. I don't know if this sounds like a big deal to you but it's a big deal to me. Like traveling alone, carpentry is one of those things I wanted to be able to do but feared I wouldn't. It is daunting to me, incredibly daunting. But I wanted our gate. And I built that chicken coop a while back so I knew a gate might be within range. But really it involves a lot. Including digging two feet down in rocky rocky rocky soil for three sturdy posts, mixing cement, building square gates, hanging hinges, using power tools, AND in the end it had to function. Woah. 

As I was working I felt myself telling the tale. I've never built before! All I had to use was a handsaw! I have kids! Our soil has rocks bigger than my head! There are tree roots to contend with! We have a tight budget! It is cold and raining! I did it BY MYSELF! But, wait, I remembered. I don't want struggle. I am valuable without it. So when I hit a big tree root Nathan stepped in. He hacked and whacked and did a rock star job. Then I lied on my over-alls belly and scraped out the debris. When I just couldn't get a boulder out of a hole we took turns scraping and prying. When I propped up the second gate and the very bottom corner scraped against the other I almost crumpled in defeat. Then Nathan came home, analyzed the situation, and helped me see that if I adjusted the other gate, just so, it might just swing free. And it did.

I built a fence and two gates. They are sturdy and strong and rad. And I didn't do it by myself. And it's so wonderful. A perfectly ordinary extraordinary story. A happy life.

What is your worn out story? What would you like to tell instead?

Ripe

The sun on the leaves, the raindrops filtering through the maple trees. The rainbow on the dining room wall. The flurry of robin activity. The gushing beyond its brim river. It is all for me.

I am finally ready. Ready to be picked, ready to fall, PLOP, into this world and into my power.

It may be that I turned thirty-five on Tuesday, that age where the pressure to feel like I've got it together mixes with the spicy scent of life lived and rests on a bed of fluffy perspective. But it might be more than that. When Echo said "Mom! It's your birthday and now you are an old lady!", without reaching for a phrase to shore me up, ones that I could cling to and claim and quiver behind and hope were true, words came unbidden and before I knew it I was grinning ear to ear: "No honey, I am young and strong and the most powerful I have ever been".

Ideas about life have always bounced around me. I grew up in California, for goodness sake, the mecca of modern, forward-thinking life philosophies. I have read most of the books that offer helpful perspectives on life. Well maybe not all, but enough. I actually read the caligraphic quotes found on apartment walls. But I wasn't ready, apparently, to live them out.

Until now.

I can't really explain it, it isn't entirely my calendar age, or my station in life, but as though a door opened in my mind and now I can see the other side. The other side is where all of those thoughts, all those well meaning affirmations and principles are actually being put into place instead of given lip service and feeble attempts. The other side is pretty. I want it. And I am ripe enough to fall, PLOP, right into it.

I mentioned something a few days ago - Don't Worry Be Happy, another one of those catchy phrases that in the past I danced to for a moment and then stepped over. There have been other catch phrases, ones that I grabbed for a instant of triumph while my life was going well and then tossed aside as my life switched tracks and a challenge presented itself. I have been a fair weather friend to philosophical thoughts, I like them when the day is sunny and there is money in the bank, I forget about them entirely when the rain comes. I'm not mad at myself for that but am ready for something else. 

Maybe it's time to get more specific. These are the ideas I see on the other side.

Tell the story I want.

Look for a happier thought.

Be happy and the rest of what I want will come.

The story I want: this means not describing all of the ways in which my children have bothered me, not describing myself negatively even for a moment, not  cataloging woes, wether it is a description of the day or a joke about finances. This is exceedingly difficult. I want to reach for a list of woes like an alcoholic yearns for a drink. Piling them up and sorting through them feels bad in a good way, like sitting with an old friend or cuddling up with a blanket.

Look for a happier thought: Feelings are just feelings, remarkably brief and potent if we give them a chance to flare and burn-out unaided. Unfortunately most of us do not notice our feelings and thus are victim to their manifestations. We feel poorly and then notice data that supports that feeling, which is like pouring gasoline on a flame and blowing. Before we know it we have an entire life, steaming forward in a negative direction. A more helpful version is to notice a feeling immediately, letting the feeling be itself all by itself, and then if it is a feeling we do not enjoy, before a thought story can develop around it, to reach for any thought that feels better than the one that created the feeling in the first place. 

Be happy: looking for and focusing fiercely on any thought that feels good creates happiness. The place of happiness is where we make everything else happen. New ideas, motivation, a sense of plenty of time, patience, inspiration - all of these things are possible from a place of contentment. Tires screech, obstacles pop up, kids fight, the toast burns, and the car won't start when we are away from this place.

Let's get even more specific.

There has been a lot going on around here. Three birthdays in a row, major projects, the end of school, an approaching road trip, holidays, and life in general. Very busy. Yesterday I woke up and wrote a list of things I wanted to get done with several time specific tasks/meetings arrayed throughout the day. A daunting list, an ambitious one. Almost immediately I noticed anxiety. Money stress, time stress, and all the stories I was telling myself about that created anxiety and a sense that I needed to hurry. The dog walk was on that list and "needed" to happen quickly so that the next tasks could happen before we needed to be across town to pick up Xi. I was walking fast, but soon Echo was hopping out of the stroller to toss leaves into the river and forging paths to an imaginary living room nestled in the bushes.

This is ordinarily when I would toss those don't worry be happy philosophical phrases out the window. Afterall things do need to get done, life goes on and bills pile up and children need to be picked up from school. But let's remember my ripeness, let's remember that I saw that other side and want it.

So I stopped my unhelpful thoughts. 

I told a different story about the day and how it was going.

I assured myself that after stepping into happier thoughts, I would feel better, and that if I felt better all of the things on my list would get done.

I had to remind myself again later, but it worked. I did that list, I crossed everything off. I was happy while doing so and my kids were happy.

This how my life has been going. I flipped the switch and now everything is utterly different. It's glowing.

This perspective is applicable to things large and small. I want to get this blog post done so I am tempted to rush, to put off peeing, to put Echo off for a minute or two. Then I remember to breathe deeply for a moment, to pee and enjoy that moment of pause, to choose thoughts that improve my sense of well-being. If I do these things I will have plenty of time. I want more money, and wood chips for the driveway, so I am tempted to fret, rush, panic, and scurry. Then I remember that in this very moment I need only to step closer to the light, step closer to a happier thought, and not only will I feel better, everything I seek will come to pass.

Large or small, it's harder to carry out with areas that stir up stronger feelings. It's easier to find helpful thoughts that ease me away from frustration about blog writing, it's more challenging to find thoughts that shift anxiety about health or money. In these cases thinking about something that isn't money or health but that brings good feelings will do more to positively affect those areas than struggling to find related and helpful thoughts.

My friend Rachel Turiel recently posted about loving what you love. She wrote about grape buds, hops vines, chive flowers, potatoes, green beans, calendula, apples, and tomatoes. And she's right. Spending time, in any form, on the things we love, creates thoughts and feelings that are blissful, and bliss brings everything else our hearts desire.

The thing I love these days is Fairy Food. I want to be in a local craft fair, mingle with fellow artists, and make some cash, but if I am honest with myself I really just like making it. So much. Which is fantastic, because stipling the side of a tiny slice of birthday cake so that it looks like real cake absorbs my attention. I am so absorbed that negative thoughts are barred. I look up from fake pink frosting and find my life better, shinier, happier. 

It works. 

This is what I mean by ripe. It has all been here already, only now I am ready to drop into it. 

To Deserve It

This morning when Echo rolled over to snuggle up and wind her little baby-carrot fingers into my hair she was met with tangles. At night, instead of brushing and bathing I've been making miniature food out of clay. Our girls love these teeny creations and the very best gift I can give them for Yuletime is a new batch of little treats they can spread before their fairies. I started early this year because the time investment is huge. A ketchup bottle might take forty-five minutes, a wedding cake, an hour and a half. I don't know why but making small things that look like big things is extremely satisfying.

Plus, Nathan joins me on the couch and we watch movies while I pinch and roll food items. Sometimes I give him a wad of several colors and he mixes them for me. Crafting, snuggling, movie, I don't mean to sound all matronly or anything but thats a pretty sweet recipe in my book.

So that means tangles. But she didn't seem to mind. She said: Oh Mama. My sweet warm Mama. Some Mamas are mean! But not you. She doesn't think I am mean, I'm so glad. A while back Bella was filling out a pink pre-teen journal thing that asked her for her favorite pop stars, colors, hobbies, and also for a description of her family members. For me she wrote: Nallie, my stepmom, is as sweet as can be. Ready to help and always with a smile on her face. I have to admit I was surprised. It's not that I think I am mean. I know I am doing a pretty good job and never act cruelly, and of course I am happy that they have a glowing impression of me, I only wish my own self-image matched.

Because the thing is when Bella is with us I feel like my face is in a permanent skeptical frown. I feel that way because I am pretty sure it is that way. Bella brings crazy energy, which is enormously fun, but for a parent, also enormously challenging, messy, and scattered. When she asks if they can do something I usually say yes but, not with joy, with lots of furrowed brow, some hemming, some hawing, maybe some grumbling too. Basically like a wound-up Eeyore. 

With Echo I scowl a little less, there is something about smallness that carries with it extra available patience or leniency, but I still have my moments. For instance, while walking downtown the other day, Xi and Echo were in the stroller and literally scratching each other's eyeballs out. We have the kind of stroller where a mesh lid stretches over and clicks into place, so they were very much like caged animals. I pressed my lips to their enclosure, trying to sort things out and witnessed a fingernail slash across a forehead, and several elbow blows. I lost it. I unclicked that latch in record time, whipped the blanket off, grabbed the first arm and yanked the body attached to it right out of the stroller, then repeated with the next. Then I said, Okay, since you can't work out sitting in the stroller together, start walking.

This move, from a parent like me, is akin to a horror movie. The girls were in shock. Frozen on that wind-whipped sidewalk like blind moles thrown into sudden sunlight. They cried. 

I walked maybe three feet with high blood pressure and self-loathing before I returned to their shivering, miserable forms. I'm not afraid of crying, nor do I think they should be free to actually maim one another, but what I did? It was scary to them. I'm pretty sure it falls into the mean category. 

I returned with empathy, let go of all of my expectations for continuing forward, put the dog on a stay so that I wasn't further annoyed by his nose-sniffing wanderings. Eventually we moved on, one child rode in the stroller, the other balanced on top. Neither of them was mad at me. But I was! Oh how sad I felt. For letting my emotional state, which had nothing to do with the girls, interfere. For being scary. Moms can be a lot of things but I think it is nearly unforgivable to be scary. 

Later, much later, when we were eating bagels and scooting figurines about, I apologized. They gladly accepted, the event a mere blip on the map of their ancient past. But I have been slower to forgive myself. I just can't help but wonder how much wiggle room a mom has. How many times can you totally blow it and still be recorded as sweet as can be in the pre-teen journal. Observation has shown me that children, especially girls, love their moms no matter what trauma they drag them through, but that's not the kind of love I am shooting for. I don't want the begrudging kind, the kind that is debilitating, the kind that the kid feels but later wishes they didn't because then their life would be simpler, healthier. 

I want to deserve it.

So here's to a new day, tangles and all. Today I will carry some self-empathy in my pocket, not only so that I do not take my emotions out on my children, but also so that I can forgive myself for past struggles. Today I will be the mama I want to be, the mama I want my girls to remember, the one they store in their dear hearts.

And photos of mini food soon.

 

Regret, The Unwanted House Guest

I did an interview for mothering.com yesterday. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this but when we started Feeleez I imagined myself basically completely anonymous. Kris had this brilliant idea about teaching empathy to kids and wondered if I wanted to do the drawings for our game. That role fit my personality perfectly. I could draw inside the shelter of my own home while collaborating with two of my favorite people.

But the me in me that isn't shy and apparently has opinions, is always popping its little head out, revealing me further than I'd like and rendering me far more vulnerable than I would ever choose. It's pesky. 

Seemingly before I knew it I was writing a blog, detailing bits of my life and inner psyche I never would have imagined would see the light of day. And then yesterday I was almost all the way out there, no drawings to hide behind, no written word to do my speaking for me. At least it was radio and no one could see my yoga pants and hairy dog sweater, but it was definitely the most public I've been in a long time.

I prefer writing over speaking, not only because of that shy part of me, but because I suffer fewer regrets. I can read things over and make sure it's exactly what I wanted to present. When I am talking the words slip into ether as soon as they've left my mouth and I can't be quite sure if they are doing me any justice. Then later in the day snippets of my dialog drift past my vision, I see them floating there and fret. And regret. That I didn't say more, or didn't make my point crystal clear, completely unmistakable.

Overall I know it went swimmingly. But regret is a tricky feeling. It's one that the oldest girl in our family asked me to put on the Feeleez poster because she, with her firey, spontaneous nature, often does things that she wants to take back. 

It came up in the interview yesterday too. Parents feel regret. We read an article with new ideas and can't help but look back on our own parenting choices with a cringe. Or even looking back on one day we can feel regretful. Wishing we had responded differently when our child spilled the hamster food. Wishing we had stopped typing to read that story our boy asked for. And almost always wishing we had been more gentle and patient during the tooth brushing, bedtime routine so that they drifted off to sleep with sparkly love in the air instead of heavy irritation. 

It is so hard to feel this feeling. So hard.

We even try to parent so specifically, so consciously so as to avoid regret. But we can't. And I could stuff that not-shy me down deep, never let her out, never let her open her mouth. Maybe then I would avoid regret, the regret of not saying something exactly right. But I can't.  

We are doing our best. Our very best. I keep reminding myself that about the interview. I said what I said, I tried really hard, my intentions were golden. As parents we are doing our very best. We did what we did last year, yesterday, the day of the birth, we tried really hard and our intentions were golden. 

Today is a new day, with new opportunities and maybe we'll do things differently. Maybe not. 

But like any emotion, regret will visit again. If we try to stop it it will simply wait on the porch, or slip through a back window. We could stuff it into the basement but feelings just grow bigger down there, more menacing and potent. Not to mention that regret will just bust out later, during a dinner party or some other inopportune moment. No, its best to just welcome it in, hear its story and when it gets drowsy or tipsy, when we've had enough of its company, to escort it out the back door. Thumping the hood of its car in farewell as he pulls away from the curb.  

Love or Self-preservation?

I was helping Echo fall asleep tonight and noticing. Simply noticing. My nipple was sore and raw. My shoulders were freezing (my little girl likes to swing between covers and no covers). My breast was empty. My hair was pulled to the limit (Echo's comfort maneuver is to wind her fingers through my hair seeking out the cool spots). My scalp stretched in pain. 

And I thought to myself, Man. The things we do for love. Of course there was a bit of pride in my thought. I could think of a million stupider or more extreme things I, or someone else, has done for romantic love. But maternal love, or paternal love, is pure, regal, immune to the test of time and levels of maturity.

I recalled other testaments to this kind of love. For instance I cooked the exact same dinner two times last night because after we had all eaten, I mean to say actually, that after Nathan and I had eaten and Echo finally decided to join us, Echo was quite disappointed that there were no second helpings of delicata squash for her to enjoy. Who knew she liked delicata squash? I certainly didn't. Even though I load her bowl with a wide variety of vegetables as well as other members of the food groups, she seems to never eat a thing. But she said she liked the squash. She also said she'd eat more if there were some. So not two minutes after completing it I was making the exact same meal over again. 

That's love right?

There are others, so many others. We allow one piece of Halloween candy per night because we care about her, want to preserve her teeth, her health, her palette. We only watch movies on Saturday night because imaginative play is better for her brain. We rustle her into bed by eight o'clock so that she can get every possible hour of sleep. We do this because we love her.

All for love.

But what if I am lying to myself? Kris wrote a post tonight about an unschooling family that never ever limited foods, never enforced restrictions. They completely trusted their children and let them find their own balance with sugar, food, t.v., and bedtimes. And their children are healthy beyond belief. What I take from this is that there are always a million ways to do things, a million opinions on parenting. But the other nagging thought is: How much of my parenting decisions are made, not for the love of my child, but for myself? For the love of me, or at the very least, for my convenience?

Don't get me wrong, my own needs are important. I am not advocating that any of us throw ourselves under the bus. Not even. But I would like to be honest with myself.

I endure a sore nipple, freezing shoulders and hair pulling in part because I know that it's worth it. If I nurse Echo to sleep she will fall asleep. Quickly. 

I remake the dinner, in part, so that she will eat more. If she eats more she will sleep longer in the morning and I might be able to rise after the sun.

I only allow one piece of candy, in part, because I might avoid having to deal with a meltdown.

They are good reasons, sure they are. But those particular motivations belong better in the category of Self-preservation than Love. And there is nothing wrong with self-preservation, as long as that's what I call it.

In fact, I'm glad to clarify for myself why it is I am still nursing after three and a half years, why I am holding on demand, re-making food, why I am making any of the parenting choices I am, because it reminds me of my volition, my freedom of choice, my involvement in shaping my life. I am not a victim of love. I am not a miserable pawn, left in the cold while my daughter gets her way. I am not a martyr, slaving away over a hot stove because my child put in her order. 

There is something for me in all this too.

I could go through all of the instances above and detail the parts that are motivated by love. I could talk about our connection, her blue eyes, her fervent desires to die at the very same moment, the smell of her hair, sleeping with her arms around my neck, feeding her squash and thinking of her strong beating heart, her whispers in the morning, the sound of her thoughts as they mingle with mine. There is so much love that, quite frankly, I feel justified in any f-ing decision I ever make with regard to her. 

But to chalk it all up to love, is to say it's happening to me, not with me. To describe my seemingly lack of self-will with the excuse of love isn't honest. The truth is that it's all love and self-preservation, that the two live together, dancing and fighting like roommates will. The truth is that I love her beyond belief, beyond my own belief, but that I am also practical. 

Practical, maybe not what I am ideally shooting for as a parent, or as a spiritual being, but I'd like to at least claim it, and name it.

 

 

 

Recovered

I think we've recovered from Halloween. Candy recovery for Echo and cuteness recovery for me. 

Halloween is great in it's utter straight-forwardness. You dress up, you say "trick-or-treat" and you get candy. No history to learn, no religion to wind your way around, just costumes, sugar and friendly neighbors. Echo is almost never even outside at night let alone knocking on strange doors and then after, if that weren't strange enough, dumping a pile of candy onto the living room floor and EATING IT.

And we let her. She ate a few things, often stopping mid-treat to move on to something else. I watched her and the clock, and eventually cut her off and dropped her in bed, flushed cheeks, wide eyes and all. I scrubbed her teeth, read a few short books and she was asleep within milliseconds. But the next morning, which could hardly be called morning since there was no sign of the sun at all, the sugar was still with us. Echo writhed in the dark, pissed-off. The covers weren't quite right, my arm was in the way, Papa's pillow was encroaching, nothing was right. Often, under these circumstances Echo will wail NURSE! and seek comfort in a bit of milk at my breast, so I wasn't surprised when she started in, NNNNNNUUUUUUURRRR.... but she didn't say nurse, she said, NERDS!

Yes. My daughter now knows what Nerds are, she knows the delight of tiny lumps of sugar dyed with all sorts of chemicals and then packaged in a colorful box. She now knows of these and was screaming for them at six in the morning. Crap.

Sugar, in the old days, used to be kept in apothecaries, locked within a a cabinet with other toxic and addictive substances. Now it is handed out with glee, whole candy bars to near-infants. So there was that to recover from.

And then the cuteness. Echo was in a blue fuzzy suit. That alone was a lot for me to handle. I wanted to squeeze her until she popped, to eat her, or smoosh her or something. Then there was the wide-eyedness, the novelty, and her management of the practicalities. I saw her working out how to handle her pretend cookie, the candy basket, porch steps, shyness and spooky pumpkins. It was all so earnest and vulnerable I could barely stand it.

When, at one point, a lady handed Echo a Pixie stick, and Echo stared at it in wonder, stuck to the spot, her hand moving in slow motion for moments and moments while the adults stood, holding their breath, waiting for her to complete the transaction, I almost turned inside out. She is little, young. Young enough to not ever have seen such a treat. Young enough to not know about the timing of social interactions, that once you have received the treat you say Thank You in a recorded kind of way and move off. She is young enough to be slow in her wonder, silent in her studiousness, and intent on getting her bearings on a mysterious night.

My love for her in that Pixie stick moment was almost too much to bear.

But we've recovered.

Echo will eat candy today, but she didn't wake at dawn, her interest is no longer crazed, and her system has rid itself of the initial sugar onslaught. I will still be stunned by cuteness, in fact when I found Echo this morning with her head beneath the couch cushions, mourning the rip she inflicted upon her Winnie the Pooh sticker, I was momentarily paralyzed. But it was momentary. I didn't feel myself turning inside out, my heart stayed within it's confines. Perhaps the absence of a blue suit saved me.

These are battles we will fight forever. Sweets will always call our name and there will be other mornings when Echo suffers from over-indulgence. And I will always be at risk of dying from my love for my daughter, from her wonderfulness and red-cheeked cuteness.

Perhaps it's not such a bad thing. Maybe we would be lucky to stumble and recover, stumble and recover in this way, for the rest of our long lives.

 

Most Random Post of All Time

I went for a run today. I almost never do that but Echo and Nathan were having their "Echo and Papa" time and the list of things I wanted to do in that time was longer than possible. So instead of a leisurely stroll in which I walked, talked on the phone, and looked for deer hidden among backyard bushes, I decided to strap that yellow dog onto a leash, tie on some sneaks, and bolt through our usual route.

It worked. I was home in half the time. It probably wasn't the preferred speed for my canine companion. So many smells passed by. So many bushes left un-peed upon. And now he's back in his hairy bed with a look like: What happened?

On the run I got caught behind two gentlemen making their way with two bicycles and a shopping cart. I couldn't quite squeeze past them and the cart kept getting hung up on edges which would cause the pusher to ram it again and again and shout loudly. I eventually snuck around behind and was intending to just yank that cart up over the lip so these fellows could get on with their day and I could keep running but at the last moment an angry heave shoved the thing forward.

As I passed within inches of these guys I noticed that the surly and ineffective pusher wore a wig under his dirty cap. If the wig were a car you'd call the color champagne. A champagne wig. Four or more inches of it sticking out before it got caught up in the t-shirt/coat collar vortex. 

I don't know what to make of it. I can't stop thinking of it. At first I thought: Well if I'm ever in a similar position I hope I am able to throw vanity to the wind and just enjoy my shopping cart and my 40 oz of Olde English. But now I think that sounds snooty, like you have to be free of alcoholism or have to have a home in order to care about going bald. 

Down a similar thought path I have often vowed that if I ever get put in the slammer, sent away for life for some heinous crime with no hope of parole, I wouldn't lift weights. I wouldn't run the track or try to keep myself up in any way. Instead I would smoke packs and packs of cigarettes because when else would I allow myself that kind of vice?

But how can I be sure? I might want to continue feeling good even if I'm wearing an orange jumpsuit and will never, ever, even go to the county fair again. 

I guess that cart pusher might have some struggles, not just an unruly shopping cart, but he still wants to look good. He wants to feel good. And a champagne wig does the trick.

So be it. 

Assurance

Me: Do you know how much I love you?

Echo: Yes.

Me: How much?

Echo: As much as a... camel.

A camel? She said it so matter-of-factly, like we've gone over this a thousand times and the answer is always the same: As much as a camel. I was having one of those moments, you know the kind, where I am filled with so much, almost uncontrollable love, that I want to pop the child. Or eat her. Or scrunch her. The safest way to express myself in these moments is to use my words, repeat my declarations of love, and quiz the child on the degree of that love.

But a camel?

I suppose camels are big, and I'm sure they love their babies, (calves?), a whole lot, but I've never mentioned camels in my love confessions before. Although if I think about it, any answer that describes a volume of love is satisfying. I simply want them to know about my feelings and if desert mammals are the current measuring stick I guess that's alright with me.

Sometimes I totally blow it. I say no before I even think through my reasons. I assume the worse before finding out for sure. Sometimes I yell and use intimidation.

In the check out line in that Wal-Mart Supercenter on our road trip, buying snacks and flip-flops for the girl who forgot to wear shoes, I juggled annoyance, debit card swiping, and a lurching toddler while noticing that Bella was systematically and subtly body-blocking Xi from getting closer to the cart. I watched as she silently and surreptitiously bullied. I didn't offer empathy, followed by information. Oh Bella, I see you're upset by something. Are you wanting to bother Xi because you're mad? Yeah it's hard to feel that angry isn't it.... Nope. I produced a guttural, whale-like, quiet bellow: BELLA. QUIT IT. GET AWAY. It was under the radar enough, like a dog whistle, that other shoppers were unaware, but my children were like deer in the head lights.

Or at Pickathon where Emily had her beautiful clothes displayed, and dust fluffed up with every step, and the children were coated in not only dirt, but also stickiness of an undetectable sort, and I watched Xi run through the booth, squeezing between dresses, I didn't gently approach her and remind her once again that clothes that are for sale need to be clean. Nope. I used my dog voice. The one I save for when Henry is eating barf off the fraternity-house lawn, or stepping off the curb into the street before I've given him the command to cross. It was a huge voice, loud, and primal. XI! NOOOOOO! Her dirty face clouded and darkened, and not because of dust or dirt.

Or yesterday morning when Echo wanted to nurse for the fifteenth time and I didn't have any milk left and my nipples were raw and she ferreted out my breast from behind my gridlocked arms anyway and locked on with a vise-like suck, I didn't draw on a motherly reserve of patience. I didn't explain once more the state of my nipples, the low supply of milk, or the state of my feelings. I whipped her mouth off of me quick, like lightning, and had her flipped over and tucked into a prison-like spooning position before she could let out a squeak of protest. The protest did indeed follow fairly rapidly, a freaked out wail of surprise and anguish that would have torn my heart in two if it hadn't been temporarily hardened by stored up martyrdom and justification.

Sometimes I fail to meet my own standards of parenting.

Which is to say that if Echo believes whole-heartedly that I love her as much as a camel, I'll take it. After shameful parenting moments I'm glad that the notion of me loving them is ingrained, a fact, a question that results in eye rolling because the answer is obvious.

When I was little and my father asked me the same: How much do I love you? My sister and I always responded with feigned irritation at the repetitive question and then the correct response: Jillions!

Jillions was the self-coined term my dad used to describe the immensity, the impossible grandness of his love. If I could only provide a bank statement that indicated the jillions I feel for our girls, the towering pile of love I have for them, they would have proof that they could pull out and check after I yell at them or rip their mouths off of my body, and I might rest a little easier. But statements of that sort don't exist. For now I'll have to make-do by making every effort to operate with a calm voice, to use empathy, to provide information, and to draw on deep reserves of patience, so that ninety-nine times out of a hundred they can see my love in my treatment of their tender souls, and feel no need to ever question its volume.

On other days, or in less than stellar moments, I will have to be content with the reassurance that comes with an answer like camel.

No Matter Which Way You Slice It

It really is still a nine-hour drive from Portland to Missoula. It seems that driving during the night doesn't change that fact. Although, we were able to effect a change in the incessant discontented moaning from the toddler. She whimpered in her car-seat shaped sleep instead. On that front we were successful. With three slumbering girls tangled in the back seat Nathan and I finished several conversations, munched on trail mix, and zoned out, which proved to be a refreshing shift from the constant snack fetching, squabble settling, and nursing gymnastics of the previous trip. Now, the three hours of sleep I got upon returning home? Not so refreshing.

But we are home. And, the gods really are smiling on us. Clean sheets, a clean fridge, a clean house, more than one could ever wish for upon return. Either we picked a stellar house-sitter, we got a little help from sympathetic and awesome friends, or both. As soon as the sun rises a bit more I intend to find out.

The last portion of our trip included Pickathon, a music festival that stretches across a warm, sweet-smelling, gorgeous farm right outside of Portland. Emily traded several of her Filly dresses with the founders of the festival in exchange for a vendor booth and tickets for all. This meant that not only did we get to listen to music, gaze at Mount Hood in the distance, and people watch, we also had a home base in the heart of the action where we could help beautiful women try on clothes, cook a meal in our makeshift kitchen, and lounge with my sister. The girls were equally content. New friends, kid activities, favorite foods, caring adults always ready to grab a snack or wrestle, and the freedom to run wild, knowing they could always find their way back to the Filly booth.

I also have never seen dirtier children. At night we methodically wiped farm dirt from between fingers and toes, scrubbed watermelon juice from chins, and washed unknown sticky streaks from necks and forearms before unzipping the tent flap. Like dead weights they dropped into their sleeping bags, glow bracelets adorning far-flung arms, faces slack with exhaustion. Nathan and I stepped back into the musical dark each evening knowing that we'd stuffed enough fun into those skinny bodies to last them a lifetime.

And I am filled as well. There is such exquisite pleasure in the company of our friend-family. Our children are theirs, the closest they have to their own, and they treat them as befits that honor. They smile at their antics, know their personalities, and see their histories in each twist and twirl. And as the girls wove in and out among our sandaled legs we ate berries, drank tea, and laughed. We discussed topics that only friends of many years get to discuss in mixed company: sex, relationships, embarrassing moments, the past, the future, our dreams and concerns. I wore my sister's shoes, and got to be next to her, to watch her face and delight in her crinkly smile.

Pulling away from the curb was tragic as always. They stood on the lawn, mustard yellow sweaters, red jeans, dusty blues and greys, a rainbow of everything good and sustaining. My sister's face was puckered in that sad way that if we lingered, or said anything at all, would crumble into crocodile tears. My throat tightened around a yo-yo and we drove away.

I sure do love her.

I love them all, and I am grateful that we got that splendid summer week in their company.