Son Sestina

Mornings with Boys

At 5:17am, from behind the leftover nighttime, a voice

squeaks, “Mom.” I blink my eyes, and put out a hand

“I can’t find my slippers,” he explains, as if cold feet

woke him up. “Climb in with me,” I say and pull him into

my blankets. His knees poke my stomach, his body

folds into mine and the warmth is a wall. The clink of cars

near my cheek, tiny lead-based paint hot wheel cars

snuck into bed with the special, whispering voice 

narrating their adventures. I roll away, my body 

turning from their games. He makes them talk, his hands

dancing them in the air above the blanket, cars into 

planes into buddies. And then he's out. Running feet

into the hall and down the stairs. I put my feet 

down first and look for slippers, stepping on a car

and recoiling. Already a day of toys turning into

weapons. Shower curtain pulled back, my hand

turns on the hot water, waiting for the steam. My body

hasn’t breathed yet. I step in gingerly, feeling like a body

of water drowning. The water so hot it’s cold stabs my feet

and I lean around the stream to adjust, my hand

catching the heat. Counting the attacks – first the cars,

then the water, next comes the tiny, fat fingers and voice

pulling back the curtain: “Momma.” I dip my head into

water. “Momma?” comes again with a diapered bottom into

the bath. His hair is curling, his toes are soapy, and his body

fits between my legs. I pump shampoo and a downstairs voice

asks, “Is Sullivan with you?” Below me he stomps his feet,

splashing and popping bubbles, then squatting and making car

noises. “Yes,” I call, scratching my scalp and rinsing my hands.

 “Dat,” he says and I try to look through the soap, his hand

pointing at me. And before I can stop it, a soapy finger into

my belly button. I fold in, calf hitting the spout, the day’s car

nage amassing. The reminder of “This is not my body”

since it was inhabited by others. I watch the soap around my feet,

gather my calm and attempt to use my kindest mother voice.

With my hands I lift him out, the weight of his almost two-year-old body

pulls me into the day. He retracts his legs leaving no feet

to stand on. Henry runs in with wooden cars, Sully grounded by his voice. 

Grown Up Friends

I've never been that good at making friends. I had 30 kids in my K-8th grade classrooms and half of us were there the whole time. I spent weekends with my cousins and family. I'm pretty bad at small talk. Networking and mingling are like death sentences. There are a couple from high school who I still talk to. I connected with some folks in college, but have only stayed in touch (like actual in touch, not just Facebook in touch) with a few. I did a pretty good job after my divorce and had this lovely little network of friends and coworkers... and then I moved. So I send letters to Michigan and San Diego and Spokane and Los Angeles. But I don't see them every day. And I miss them.

I've been making an effort this year to make some grown up friends. It's an ongoing joke in our office about my quest to not be anti-social. I have great co-workers, but there's only three of us and one is moving back to Wisconsin in a couple weeks. Plus I waiver back and forth on the appropriateness of being the boss and boundaries and things that probably aren't relevant, but are just another thing for me to feel guilty about.

Then there's the problem of people with kids. It's not that we mean to be assholes to people without them, but when you go to dinner with people who have kids and all the kids are there, you aren't expected to pay attention to everything that's said because your son is under the table chewing on a cardboard coaster while ripping his shoes and socks off. It's not that people without kids can't be understanding, but it's a lot to ask of anyone.

I joined a committee at Henry's school and tried to act friendly. I haven't really figured out how to take it outside the meetings. We've met awesome people at his school's auction the last two years when we've shared a table. My follow through is lacking though. When people say, "We should get together." I assume it's the obligatory response to "nice meeting you." Maybe it's a self esteem issue, although it's not like I'm wondering why someone would want to hang out with me. But I make them work pretty damn hard to make it happen.

After meeting one couple in November, we finally got together in April after she persisted. We had brunch at our house, their son (who's in Henry's class) played with ours. They were expecting a second child (have since had her) and are from away from Maine. It was good conversation, felt pretty easy, lots of laughing, and the kids got along. But then it's like waiting to see if they had a good time, too. Even though they said they did.

 It's like when I took Henry to soccer his second week (the first week was kind of a bust) and he refused to play. He said he didn't know anyone. I pointed out how many kids were out there alone without a group of friends and how he could introduce himself. He plastered his body against my legs and begged to go home. I didn't force him to play, but I did make him stay the whole time and by the end of it he ventured onto the field. And now, by week four, he participates easily and has his friendship hopes pinned on one girl.

The difference is, I need to do a better job of showing up for practice. Of making an effort. Making adult friends is a weird mirror for my state of mind. If this is something I want, why am I making it so difficult? Especially when I'm meeting great people. As an introvert, I'm always looking to make best friends - few, but deep friends. But I should probably hang out with people to figure that out. The quest continues...

Medically Induced Comas & Other Things Moms Think About While Sick

At Girls Rock! Weekend in early April, I led the adult workshop. We did an activity called "Linking Arms" that is supposed to demonstrate how adult women typically lose that connection to their own wants and voice. The premise is you introduce yourself and then turn to the person next to you (it's usually all women) and say something you really like. For example, "I like red shoes," "I like X Men movies," or "I like books with female protagonists." If the person next to you really likes red shoes, too, then you link arms. If she doesn't really like it, she's supposed to say no and you keep naming things until you find something in common. It's a fun ice breaker that even physically brings people closer.

I'd done about 40 minutes of workshop (talking about intergenerational partnerships and how to be aware of your own stuff when working with youth) already and I kicked off the activity. So, by the time it got back to me, everyone else had gone. I was the last person with an unlinked arm. The woman next to me said, "I LOVE being a mom." I did not immediately offer my arm. Instead, I paused. A long (maybe only three seconds, but it felt longer) pause. Too long. Before realizing I wasn't in my car by myself or writing in a journal. I was in a public circle of women who'd just been listening to me talk about how great it is to work with girls. I tried to snap out of it and joke "Depending on the day, right? Haha" and a few others laughed, but it mostly felt awkward. I finished the workshop, the day ended and I kept thinking about that.

The truth is, I don't love being a mom. I love my kids. That feels like a big distinction to me.

Lately, Henry's been saying, "I don't like these new shoes, Mom. (dramatic pause) I love them!" or " I don't like you, Mom. I love you!"

Most of the time I say, "I like you and I love you, Henry."

But that's not always true. Especially after being home with two sick boys (and then a sick me) for a week. When my parents recently went to San Francisco, I had cleared some days on my schedule to stay home with them and be a fun parent. The morning they left, Henry came down with a fever and chills. Like the solid mom that I am, I sent him to school anyway. And then the universe punished me. He went from fever and chills to stomach bug. And then Sullivan followed. And then I did. So it was a week with a two-kid doctor visit, multiple accidents, multiple loads of laundry, HOURS of Miles from Tomorrow Land and Curious George, and, of course, being sick.

Plus, they decided when one cries the other one cries (they did this with laughing first and it was adorable - crying, not so much). So there was one moment of Henry crying for a legitimate reason and Sullivan running over, encircling his tiny arms around my leg, stomping his feet and screaming.

I hated the world. I didn't eat for a couple days, but I kept feasting on anger and resentment. Had I the energy to Google, I would have researched medically induced comas. Moms aren't at the top of the appreciation totem pole on a good day, but during sickness it feels like an overweight death comes and rides on your back while whispering "you'll never get better and they don't care." in your ear.

Motherhood is not this thing I've always wanted. I don't know that there's one thing I've always wanted. But here I am, and here they are and I would bite off someone's face to protect them. Literally, the only scenario where I can even fathom shooting a gun is if someone was harming my kids. That doesn't mean I don't sometimes want to feed them to wolves.

It feels like there is a weird expectation for all mothers to love motherhood. To relish every little thing. You're allowed to admit those little rascals can sometimes drive you nuts, but that's that about the extent of the language. It's awkward to say, in a circle full of women, I don't love being a mother, but I do love my kids. And some days they feel way worse than rascals. And some days it feels way worse than nuts. But others there's the warm feeling that spreads over you (similar to when one of those rascals pees on your lap) when they say, "I don't like you, Momma, I love you."

Choosing Hard

A couple weekends ago, my mom and I went to a holistic fair. It was a square-figure-8 of tables in a auditorium-like community center. Mediums, crystals, stones, wire jewelry, pet psychics and tarot cards. We got there fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to close, so they let us in for free. Mom was determined to find me a psychic.

We watched people getting readings and doing readings. There was one woman, we'll call her Oda Mae Brown, who was talking to a woman. The woman started to cry and Oda Mae handed her a tissue box. Instead of wiping her face, the woman sat through her reading with streaked cheeks, riveted by what Oda Mae was telling her. After circling the tables for awhile, eyeing a tarot card reader in the corner, Mom decided Oda Mae was the psychic for me.

We waited until the weeping woman finished and Mom approached. It wasn't until I was in the chair and she started to tell me about herself did I realize Oda Mae was/is a medium. I'd never met with a medium one-on-one. Several years ago in my writing group we'd hired a man to come to our group and work his medium powers, but I mostly remember the odd way he kicked out his leg every few minutes.

For full disclosure, I don't disbelieve in psychics. There's a woman in Solvang, a tiny dutch town in California, named Madam Rosinka (real name) who's incredible. I think of psychics as highly intuitive people who tune into a radio wave that's out there for anyone with the right antenna. I also think there are a lot of crocks of shit who make up stuff.

Anyway, mediums. I wasn't looking to talk to the dead. I don't feel like I have any unfinished business with dead people. I don't worry about them. I miss them. It'd be cool if they weren't dead, but most of the ones I know were suffering and they are probably feeling a whole lot better if they are feeling anything. I don't think there's a heaven, but maybe just that each person dissolves into the matter that goes back into the earth. Their atoms floating out adding to new things and the parts of them that lives on is who they touched while they were alive.

So, when Oda Mae asked me who I wanted to talk to, I just picked my Grandma Henry because she was the grandparent I was closest to. The whole reading was strange. Oda Mae asked me lots of questions and told me some specific (watch out for anemia?) and lots of vague ("You're not done learning") things. Part of the confusion for me was, none of it sounded like Gram. I don't know if I expected Oda Mae's voice to change or her eyes to recognize me or what. But even the types of things she was saying didn't seem like Gram.

I shared as much as I could remember with Mom in the car ride home. Mom, despite her cynicism in everyday life, is a firm believer. "Maybe Grandma feels more at peace now so she feels she can say these things." "I think Grandma mentioned something like that... once." I remembered Oda Mae telling me Gram said "You aren't a victim in life."

"What does that even mean?" I asked Mom.

"You do like to choose hard things," Mom started. "You've always had an ingrained sense of justice and a desire to protect the underdog. It's not you being a victim, but that can be a hard life. Standing up for other people. Not always for yourself. Why do you always choose hard things?"

I didn't have a good answer. But it pinged something in me more than anything Oda Mae said.

So I changed the subject to Oda Mae saying whenever I smell sweet peas, Gram is near. Mom breathed in suddenly and said, "Grandma grew sweet peas on her farm!" As I started to protest, a huge bird flew right at our windshield, inches away from smashing in my side. I screamed, Mom swerved slightly and the bird flew off like it hadn't just almost died.

"It's Grandma," Mom said. "She's mad you don't believe her." She smiled while watching the road and we both laughed.

Mom insisted I relay this story to Jared and Dad that night and I realized, in the telling, I'm not sure what Gram would sound like. What she would say. We didn't have one-sided conversations in real life. She didn't give me speeches or long bits of advice. She told me stories about her childhood, her adulthood, her family and she listened.

Maybe mediums are more like funerals - a ceremony for the living under the guise of honoring the dead. They sometimes say something provocative enough that the listener, the hoper, can make that into something significant. And if it stirs something, does it matter where it came from?

Because rather than thinking of Gram's ethereal wisdom, I keep thinking of Mom's "You like to choose hard things."

Time to Put the No in TechNOlogy.

I've known for a long time technology now encroaches on my life. But a moment in which that became disturbly clearer happened a few weeks ago and I haven't recovered yet. Before, I'd be on my phone or iPad or computer 90% of my waking hours. I brought my laptop home at night, not actually accomplishing more work. I had my iPad with me while I watched TV. I read emails while stopped at a light.

And then I took my phone into the bathroom at work. (This isn't the realization moment, that's a common occurrance. I'm just setting the scene. Wait for it.) I put my phone down next to the sink to get situated. When I turned to pick it up, my sleeve caught it and sent it flying to the floor, just out of reach. I stretched out my foot to try and nudge it. Inches too far away. I looked around for something to extend my reach. A half-second later, without thinking, I had the plunger in my hand and was leaning over to tap my phone back.

You're cringing. And you should be.

Luckily, I paused, plunger mid-air, and thought WTF am I doing? I put the plunger back in the corner and finished up. As I bent over to pick up my phone I thought, I can't even pee without doing something else. And that's super weird. 

Since then, I've tried to at least notice when I'm online. I don't bring my laptop home with me. The iPad mostly stays by my bed to read at night. My phone doesn't come to the dinner table and I try not to be on it when my children are present or if I'm doing anything else. Yet, the moments of silence or focus are short-lived. And just when I think I'm doing better, I'm not.

Yesterday, I went to get my haircut. I took my iPad to read the book I have on there while I was getting my hair colored. So, I did that. And then the cut started. I went to a new stylist and he wasn't chatty. He was so not chatty, it made me (a small-talk-hating person) feel like chatting. He was focused on giving me an awesome haircut though. I noticed my shoulders and stomach and back were clenched. In anticipation of him talking? I have no idea. I thought about picking up my book. But felt like that wouldn't work with for obvious reasons. It took a surprisingly long time for me to get over this anxiety, be still, and be doing nothing. Once I did, it was relaxing. I watched him cut (noting tips for when my mom forces me to trim her hair) and I listened to conversations around me (learning way too much about the almost 40-year-old behind me).

I am proud of myself for these efforts but... this shouldn't be hard to do. I didn't grow up with computers and cell phones. We had one house computer when I was in high school. I got a desktop when I went away to college. I got a cell phone my junior year of college. The iPad was passed down to me by my brother less than two years ago. I still had a flip phone until 2013. But addictions happen quickly. You put your phone down, but then Didn't it just vibrate? I should check. It might be an emergency. Hmm, no call. Well, since it's on, I'll just check Facebook. And email. And update Henry's Facebook page. And read these articles on my tiny two-inch-wide screen while I squint my glasses-wearing-since-sixth-grade eyes that have been looking at screen most of the day. 

This boggles my mind. I once went to a silent retreat with monks at an abbey. We had classes during the day, but our work time, meals and night times were in silence. For several days. It was heavenly (no pun intended). And after it, I felt grounded and communal. But now, I feel even less connected to people. And feel "too busy" to: _______ (blog, sew, write, exercise, etc.) Instead of spending my time on things that fill me up, I'm wasting time on Facebook and Law & Order SVU marathons and blogging about these things during my work day.

I know silent meals aren't likely with my squawking, growing, language-learning boys. And I know I won't not check my phone periodically. But I'm experimenting with leaving it upstairs next to the iPad on the nightstand. Or at least in the other room. And I close the Facebook window after I've loaded up the page for work.
And... okay, I won't bring the phone with me to the bathroom anymore. Fine, it's gross and unnecessary.
And I won't watch SVU.
Unless it's an episode I haven't seen.

I Am 34 Years Old and Totally Okay With That.

I'm having more and more instances of relating to "old people." Maybe it's because I work with girls and college students. Because I can remember a time with no cell phones or laptops or ithings. Because the things I loved as a child (Rainbow Bright, JEM, Strawberry Shortcake, etc.) are now vintage or making another go around. 

And I keep thinking I'm 30. I was born in 1980. When I find out someone is born in 1970, the math in my head says, "Okay, they're 40." Because, I'm 30. Even though I know I turned 30 (my Doble Quinceanera) with a tiny, two-month-old, baby Henry in my arms and now he's 4 1/2 and looking like he's wearing high-waters in 4T pants. 

I talked about this with my mother-in-law a few months ago and she said it was 27 for her, the year she stopped counting, the year she still sees in the mirror. 

I saw Ethan Hawke at the Oscars (and all over really, speaking of random comebacks). He looks so old! Not in a bad way, just in an aged way. When I was in high school, I had a weird love of Reality Bites. I watched it several times, had the soundtrack (on a tape), and loved the actors in it. I sketched Winona Ryder from the poster, read Ethan Hawke's novel, and wondered if I could pull off Janeane Garofalo bangs. Still, when I hear answering machines I think, "Welcome to the winter of our discontent" and when asked for my social security number, I think of the characters singing theirs off and saying it's the only thing they learned in college. So, to sum up, Ethan Hawke aging reminds me I am aging. 

And I don't actually mind. I'm not opposed to the aging, I just forget it's happening. I don't even think 34 is old. But I think I have flipped to the side of age where young people see me as old. Sure, when I see pictures of myself from college (hell, from any time before having kids!) I look younger, skinnier, smilier. It's like looking at 2008 Obama and 2015 Obama. Or other people who've been in the spotlight for their change in appearance. Uma Thurman. Rene Zellweger.  People are getting older and this makes headlines. As if we couldn't have seen that coming. 

But every day, I look pretty much the same. It's hard to tell whether the circles under my eyes get darker. My pants fit different, but that's brownies not years. I see more gray in my hair, but I also don't dye it anymore. Maybe those have been there for awhile. (I'm hoping a Cruella DeVille stripe grows in) 

What would happen if I just didn't look in the mirror for five years? It might not be that hard. Motherhood would help. I'm almost never in pictures, hanging out behind the camera. In the mornings, if the mirror isn't fogged up, I'm usually doing seven other things. Walking around with my toothbrush while I make sure Sullivan isn't chucking toys into the toilet, picking out clothes for Henry, trying to get lotion on the boys' legs to fight the winter air, kicking laundry into piles, handing Sullivan whatever item he's barking about, thinking about if I brought Henry's lunch bag inside and if we have anything other than Pirate's Booty and gummies to put in it, trying to picture the day's work calendar to see how fancy my outfit needs to be... Who needs a mirror for any of that? 

And in five years (okay, a week), I'll catch a glimpse and think, "Who's that?" in the same sentence of telling someone I'm 30. 

Nonviolent Punch in the Face

In the car, the day before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Henry asked me about MLK. "Did he die?" Henry asked. Another moment of having to think about how deep to go, how much to say. He's asking about a man and I'm thinking about civil rights. 

"Yes, he's dead. He was shot."
"Why?"
There have been so many moments in parenting when I have to explain something I don't completely understand. Something he needs to know about, but something I hope he never fully comprehends, because I don't want him to sit in that headspace of the people who are so afraid that they kill. 
"People didn't like what he was saying and they didn't like that he was saying it." 
"So they shot him so he wouldn't say it ever again?" 
"Yes. They were afraid." 
"But all he wanted was peace." (I love his teachers)
We talked about the bus boycott and Henry told me he would have punched the bus driver. I told him MLK believed in nonviolence. How he said you don't have to change your laws about the bus, but I also don't have to ride your bus. And we talked about sit ins and the rules of restaurants. And when we got home, we held our arms next to each other and he told me my skin was pinker than his and why do I have freckles and he doesn't. 
It was a moment I allowed myself to be proud of how I'd talked with my four-year-old about something important. A conversation he came back to over the next week. But inside that pride, there is the looming and landed structural bullshitness of our world. The honor and fear of raising a kind, critical-thinker in a broken, hurtful, but somehow still magical world that has an overwhelming amount to critically think about it. 
In my girls' group, with 7th and 8th graders, they tell me about the hierarchy of their school. There are the scrubs at the bottom and by even associating with them, you run the risk of joining them. And at the top there are the popular people who come from money, followed by the popular people who don't. And in between are the rest of the people who want to be in one group and are terrified of being designated to the other. These girls are mostly in between. They've watched their friends being picked on and felt paralyzed. When they've attempted to intervene, they're told "It's not your business." 
In the world of their junior high, they can't imagine this being any different. They believe, for the most part, it's not their business. I ask them, if we could wrap the moment in a bubble, they could do or say anything they want to that Jabroni (the name they've created for the person doing the picking on) and then snap their fingers and not have to face any consequences, what would they do? And before I can finish the question, three girls out of seven say, "I would punch them." One of them is a quiet, thoughtful, happy girl who has mostly remained unscathed from the ranking system. For the first time in our time together, her eyes go hard and serious. The girls who didn't answer out loud are nodding their heads.
For a quick moment, I want to tell them to do it. To punch those Jabronis in the face. Not with the point of inflicting pain, but to show your friend whatever insult was just thrust at them isn't true and they aren't alone. And to break the paralysis of the team of students in the hall watching that interaction and tucking their chin down, embarrassed, but relieved it's not them. 
I think of how I'm trying to dilute the violence out of Henry, but am weirdly elated to hear it from these girls. I want Henry to feel the urge to punch a driver of racism. And I want the fists of these girls to ball up when someone enforces a malicious pecking order in their school. I don't want them to get in trouble and I don't actually believe in violence, but it reassures me their embers are still hot. Because the only thing scarier than violence, is resignation.