Underwater reinterpreted
In the quiet of the bedroom, the air conditioner makes the fish hanging from above Bean's bed float in dreamy spirals. We lie together, just the two of us in the semi-dark, waiting for sleep to settle over his energy-packed little body. Waiting to just be in the moment, breathing.
Underwater
I woke up moody this morning, my body drenched in sweat, feeling off-kilter for no particular reason. Sometimes it's just like that. Everything feels slanted, thick, slightly smashed. And I couldn't shake the mood all day. Even after a nap in an air conditioned bedroom, an iced tea and a trip to the bakery. Tonight I dragged my unmotivated self to the pool for a swim, doing a just about a mile. Lap after lap, pulling through the water, my lips and nose and cheekbones periodically pushing through the surface for air. It didn't help that it was gray out all day, the air heavy with rain that hasn't yet fallen. Even up here, northwards by many hundred miles, the weather reflects the storm that's pounding Louisiana right now. I can't imagine the anxiety they must feel, wind surging up so hard. Water everywhere. The threat of everything being gone tomorrow.
The end of summer
Riding back on our bikes from the beach as the sun was slowly falling towards the mountains, I noticed maple leaves turning red. Autumn always brings introversion. A time to take stock of the way the garden has turned out after the growing season; the way my feet look, with a flip-flop tan line and a callous from my bike shoes; the way my soul feels after months of expansion. I'm a bit reluctant this year to give up the goodness of summer, though I love fall more than any other season: for its gathering, its harvest, the leaves like fire spreading up the hills. But fall, with its sheer flaming beauty is like a lover that you know you can't keep, and before you've really learned its secrets, it's already gone. Piles of graying leaves and twiggy silhouettes in its wake; and with it, an inner shedding. An hesitation. Moments of silence. Loneliness creeps back up to the surface of things, waiting for snow fall.
Under a canopy of sunshine
Yesterday a 24 mile bike ride with Bean and one of my best girlfriends, out along the causeway. Lake water in every direction, ringed with mountains like we were in the middle of a blue bowl with a ragged edge.
The sky above us was sun-streaked and wind blown; tatters of clouds scudding by. Out at the end of the path, on the breakwater made with huge hunks of granite we ate sun-ripened peaches and laughed a lot.
Bean, his hair all sweaty and rumpled like baby duck down, sat in my lap sucking on the sweet peach flesh, making small grunting noises of glee. And we talked about how our mothers came from a generation that believed part of the duty of being a mother was being a martyr. That somehow raising a child meant loosing oneself.
Later, over wine and grilled corn with friends, we made a ruckus until well past midnight; the seams of our lives nearly blurring completely.
And this morning, at the corner breakfast place, heaps of French toast, coffee, fresh papaya and melon and mango, Bean slept in the Bjorn on my chest. It works, this life we've made for ourselves with him in it. There are differences, surely. But it's not the bittersweet sacrifice my mother made it out to be---in so many ways her life ceased when mine began.
It's a matter of definitions, it seems. Of expectations. What makes life good for me has started to have much less to do with outcomes than with the process itself. Knowing that I'll be woken several times a night by a baby who is uncomfortable and teething, seeking solace, leaves me two options: to feel frustrated, resentful, exhausted; or to knit the moments of half waking snuggled close against his fragrant sleepy head, into a night. And then wake up in the morning with a clean slate, greeted by the warm embrace of my husband, our baby inching his way over our bodies, giggling with joy.
I wanted to tell this to the couple we saw at the restaurant carefully carrying their two week old baby in his convertible car seat, their eyes still wide with wonder and lack of sleep. Instead I said simply, "It gets better and better every day."
Retail therapy:
Aren't these wild? I want one... These 3 designs pretty much sum things up for me tonight. I'm feeling a bit edgy & intense. Ready for the weekend. Ready to skip the day's headlines that clatter down on my brain like small pebbles dropped from a high rise rooftop. I can't help every once and a while getting good and riled up about the state of global affairs, and particularly this country's involvement in certain middle eastern ventures that seem to be undeniably about oil, despite the politicking about democracy.
As I am, as she is
Went for a run this afternoon, in the late summer heat. 6 miles at about 7.5-8 mph pace the whole time. It was sort of a landmark for me, because I did this run at the beginning of the summer, way back when we first moved here three months ago, and I was terribly winded. Red faced, my heart pounding. I had to stop several times to walk. But today, I could feel the muscles in my legs responding differently. As though my body were saying, you were made to do this. This upright forward motion stuff works for you. I didn't stop once, and I never felt winded.
I feel good running now, after doing it almost every day for three months. Even though my ankle still hurts from an injury earlier in the summer, and I feel my knees, sore, after the end of every run, my mind loves it. Something has fundamentally shifted for me, and I think it has to do with being able to run outside, along water, under sun and the blue dome of sky. Past railroad tracks, factories, sailboats, people. I like getting from point a to point b with the momentum of my own body.
But it also has to do with the fact that for the first time in my life I have the time to focus on this part of myself. I would never have imagined this is where I'd be after having had a baby. Before Bean I could never imagine that my life would TRULY be better with him. Isn't that strange? I was very reluctant about becoming a mother. We weren't planning yet to be parents---because both of us imagined the baggage of responsibility to be so great.
But it isn't like I imagined at all. These moments of closeness and joy and running. And I know I'm lucky. I know it's not like this for everyone, and it is hard for me to share this gratitude, because I don't want it to come across like a slap in the face. But sometimes it comes across this way regardless. Especially for my younger sister, who grew up with a congenital bone disease that has left her, 22 surgeries later, severely limping, with hip dysplasia, sometimes in a wheel chair.
And this has been such a strange thing for me to try and wrap my mind around. The gratitude I feel for my life, juxtaposed by the bitterness she sometimes says she feels, seeing my life. I carried her, when we were kids, all over the place, piggy back. I felt responsible for her. Protective. Angry that she couldn't escape the encumbrance of her disability. Angry that things weren't the same for her as they were for me.
Now we're both adults, and we're extremely different. Growing up in a family that never played together, we didn't learn how to take things lightly, to laugh, to have a sense of humor. Instead we were nurtured in a culture of competition. Always, it seemed, our mother was indirectly comparing us, out of some misguided effort to get us to see each other's strengths. Instead, we ended up seeing our weaknesses and feeling small because of them.
I haven't felt competitively towards my siblings for years; since we were kids, really. As an adult, I really am only competitive with myself. I love breaking my own records: academic, athletic. I don't even know what 'winning' would look like, against the people I love.
Yet somehow, because of the way we were growing up, and because of the huge physical disparity between us, it's hard to be grateful for the ease with which my limbs now move in these sports I love without feeling guilty.
Somehow I want it to be okay for us, to be different. For me to run, to celebrate my running, without making her jealous---without making her hurt or feel small. Our lives, our worlds, everything we know practically, except our memories of childhood, are different. And I want this to be okay. I love her desperately, just as she is. I wouldn't want her to change. I wouldn't want her to be more like me. The way she is: passionate, impulsive, stubborn, disabled, artistic, is perfect.
foodie prose--ode to 7 good things
slick skin, smooth flesh, wide pit. slicing it in half and cubing the flesh the way my best friend learned to do in Hawaii, eating the cubes off the knife blade without cutting our tongues. mango sorbet and in lassi at the Indian place on the corner. sweet and cool from some place far away. a little bit of sunshine, even in winter, at the grocery store.
quenches a certain soul thirst, chocolate. dark, slightly bitter, sweet. when I'm pms-ing it's the only thing I want. or when I'm tired or need inspiration. not always, but sometimes, I want it. with pretty foil wrappers from Costa Rica, San Francisco, Germany, I always get it e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. when I eat it. always on my pants. my fingers, my lips. for kisses and licking off. or in winter in a cup, liquid with whipped cream, snow falling.
from Spain, sliced fine on salad and pasta. sitting around the kitchen table with friends, laughing, playing scrabble, eating crackers and this flaky cheese by the mouthfuls. cutting thin wedges with a sharp knife on a wooden board. nibbling it while dinner's cooking with olives, dried figs, wine.
every morning he wakes up and pulls perfect shots for me from his bright red espresso maker, pours them over ice with milk and sugar in the summer. or in winter, hot with extra foam. coffee houses around the world brewing up this stuff of late nights and early morning. my writer's inspiration. my accompaniment on long train rides to work. and now, in a red to-go mug every morning for a walk with my man and my boy.
throwing half eaten cherries at each other in the orchard when we were small, until we looked freckled with some strange disease of bright red spots the size of quarters. spitting pits as far as we can across the driveway. always stain my clothes. cherries bring summer. roadside stands. hot, dark red, firm. nothing better.
beekeepers know secrets about waggle dances and sun meridians. honey bees, makers of magic sweet stuff, keep pollinating crops year after year. without them, our food supply would be threatened world wide. think watermelon, apples, zucchini, pumpkins, basil, chives. yet the bee blight is ravaging hives everywhere. someday I will keep bees. till then I eat the honey straight from the comb, licking my fingers and thinking of the remarkable wonder that is a beehive.
summer nights, in the kitchen making fresh pasta with farmer's market tomatoes, basil. after dinner with a glass, fingering the stem while looking at stars and fireflies on the porch the baby asleep. the way his kiss tastes, slightly bittersweet, after a glass.
One of the many uses for the laundry basket around our house:
I know I've been a bit picture-heavy in my last few posts, I'm a bit stunned with how quickly Bean is growing & changing (daily, hourly.) He's starting to crawl--he can get his feet up under his but now, and get fully up into a crawling position, and he then he just sort of hangs out there, rocking back and forth and grinning. It's adorable. And also terrifying. At least the cats are terrified. They know their days are numbered. They see the glint Bean gets in his eyes every time they pass.
Bean loves to sit in the laundry basket and play with things--and by play, I mean pound a wooden spoon onto the edge of the basket. Yes, he's discovered that HE can MAKE NOISE that isn't roaring. Which he is still quite superb at.
When he was newborn, I started putting him in the laundry basket out of desperation when I needed to pee (or take a shower) and wanted him with me. It was such a great, easily transportable (and totally cost effective) solution to the whole fancy-pants bassinet idea.
All this to say, we have to lower his crib mattress tomorrow. And then childproof the house. Any tips?
Help me, he's teething
Any & all tips,suggestions and sympathy would be appreciated right about now, Internet. The kid has become a little monster, gnawing and chomping on everything.
OH, and people, what in the world do you do to explain to a 6 month old who doesn't understand language, that BOOBS ARE NOT FOR BITING????
Super Bean
My little man spends most of his day doing this. He's OBSESSED with being on his tummy, and has now started pulling his feet up under his belly and scooting forward. Often he accompanies the pose pictured with a lovely roar.
This is all very exciting, but does he have to do it ALL THE TIME? Even when he's exhausted and ready for a nap? I guess this is what they call "milestone wake ups" right? The poor kid pisses himself off though, rolling onto his tummy jussssst when he's nearly drifted off. He gets so mad.
This isn't going to get easier when he starts crawling, is it?
The way we operate
We went on a run tonight, along the lake, as we do most nights. A little over 4 miles in all, our route takes us past the busy city center, and then down along the waterfront bike path where old train cars sit abandoned on rusted tracks, painted with fantastic graffiti art. The path is mostly paved and mostly flat after we get to the water down a steep hill. We run side by side, pushing Bean in his Chariot stroller, through the evening air. Tonight we talked about building a house as we ran. We've started the process of dreaming. Of driving through the countryside near here, looking for renovated farmhouses or land where we can build a timber frame.
But somehow, recently, this process of trying to visualize our future home, has created a lot discord for us. Our ways of imagining our future are is very different. Perhaps stereotypically so--the whole men are from Mars, women from Venus bit.
DH is an idealist, perhaps with a twinge of OCD. When he finds something he loves, he becomes obsessed with it: bikes, coffee roasting, stereo equipment, and now timber frames, he pursues his obsessions relentlessly. Searching the internet, ordering brochures, becoming increasingly knowledgeable and simultaneously increasingly adamant. His optimism knows no bounds.
By comparison, I'm slow to warm to a new idea. I come from a childhood with little money, and parents who regretted much. My mother and I talk often now, and I still here the regret in her voice about choices she and my father made. "I never wanted any of the houses we lived in," she has said. She has also said, "Money is an odd, strange thing." And she has said, "I told you so" when things don't work out more times than I care to remember, though perhaps not quite in those words.
So when it comes to imagining something new, I like to think of the worst case scenarios first, and gradually eliminate them with hard evidence as the plan grows firm. It frustrates DH to no end that I navigate this way: with fear and worry first, optimism last. But I can't help it. Pessimism and angst seem to be written deeply into my genetic code---an unwanted inheritance from my mother, that I'd like to be rid of, but can't simply shake.
So tonight, running under chokecherries and quaking aspens, we argued about the costs of building versus buying a house already built, established on land already cleared, with fields already mowed. Somehow, it seems to be a fundamental error code between men and women: that when a woman states her fears, her worries, her deepest insecurities, she DOESN'T WANT THE MAN IN HER LIFE TO FIX THEM. She just wants TO BE HEARD. Or at least, that's how it works for me.
I don't want him to hear me say I'm afraid that the costs of building might spiral out of control, and then argue why I'm wrong.
I don't want to be convinced, right off the bat that my fears are irrational. I know they probably are. They are fears after all. That's the nature of fear. Instead, I want to be heard. Simply that. I want him to say, "Hmm, I hear you saying that your afraid that the costs are going to spiral out of control if we build. That's a reasonable fear, as far as fears go." And then say nothing else.
Because, oddly, in just hearing my fears. In letting me put them out in front of me---sharp and jagged the way they are---it makes it possible for me to gradually let go of them. Over time, I'll come around to almost anything, if I get enough facts, and if the facts are backed up.
I'm spontaneous mostly---especially in friendship and affection---but when it comes to big decisions that involve our family's future, I can't help but feel terrified first and excited second.
So tonight, running, after he'd interrupted me and made me feel stupid because of my fears, I completely kicked his ass on the run. Kept less than a 8 minute mile pace the whole way. And it felt good. Good to run fast. To feel my muscles warm to the pounding of my blood, to sprint. And it felt good to hear him panting hard beside me. Harder than me.
And at the end of our run, I loved him so much again.
Taking risks
I sat down to write tonight, not for this blog, but for the bigger writing I'm doing in my life--for a writing workshop I've become a part of---and eventually, possibly, for a book. Last week, after barely making the deadline, I submitted a dozen pages describing my father's death. Of what I learned from being there with him in the weeks before he died and during those strange, miraculous moments where worlds rush together and spirit is tangible in the room.
It was a good piece, and I was grateful for being told that, as there are many dark moments during the process of writing where it is irritating and fruitless and frustrating. But they had a lot of questions about the information I didn't include. About my relationship to my sisters, to my mother: who often told me growing up, "If you had just come at a different time, everything would be different between me and your father," and about my beliefs, and the beliefs of my dad. I left the workshop, my head spinning, and watched the sun set into the lake as I drove home.
Since then I've been struggling with the realization that if I really want to write, it will be longer than a dozen pages. Longer than several dozen. And this terrifies me, because of the commitment, the challenge, and the vulnerability of writing so much. And yet, tonight, doing art, I realized that it is like all the other things I do. I can't know where it will lead, until I begin it. And so, reluctantly, I do.
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manor of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. "
--Goethe
Can we talk about moth balls for a minute? Seriously, Internet, who uses moth balls, really?
Who? You might ponder? My UPSTAIRS NEIGHBOR'S MOTHER, that's who. But she doesn't use them in airtight containers to kill larval moths that might be munching through her cashmere, which I suppose would be a perfectly acceptable use for known carcinogens, nooo, our neighbor's fucking mother was using mothballs to KILL SQUIRRELS.
That's right. She put mothball flakes in a trail all along the outer edge of their porch, "because the squirrels won't leave our deck furniture alone."
Of course, their porch is directly above our kitchen, and when the mothball flakes fell, they came right down onto the basil plants we had in our open window. But worse than that, was the sudden and horrifying smell that permeated our house gave both of us headaches. And, oh yeah, by the way, we have a 6 month old baby. Who does stuff like that, really?!
When I accosted her, she said the City told her to use mothballs to deter the squirrels. What??? Her poor daughter, who is very nice, and who makes exquisite baklava and has an adorable smile and a bumper sticker on her blue VW Bug that reads "Support Organic Farmers" was of course, mortified when we knocked on her door.
I printed out information about how toxic mothball fumes can be and couldn't help shoving them into her hands, despite the fact that she was already groveling with apologies. "If I don't keep an eye on her, I have know idea what she'll do next," she said, eyes rolling. "I'm sooo sorry! I would never put chemicals like that into the earth."
Can I just say that her mother DOESN'T EVEN LIVE HERE DAMN IT! But she's here all the time, arriving with carloads of stuff, and moving furniture around in the middle of the night. And, worst of all people, she listened to Vanilla Ice ON REPEAT at 3 am. For an hour. I hate this lady.
Overload
The inlaws, they left. Thank god. I love them. I do. I love their unswerving support and enthusiasm for everything we do. But sometimes I get overwhelmed. This visit was one of those times. Did I ever mention we have a 2 bedroom apartment? It has five rooms total, not including the bathroom or pantry. Yeah, that small. And five people in a five room shelter is just too much co2, I think. When they left, Bean fell apart. I mean, started wailing with exhaustion. His nap schedule was WAY OFF. All the way off. Like, he didn't get any naps today (except for maybe a 20 minute stint once or twice), and yesterday his nap times were short and scattered as well. A Bean with no naps is a very sad, very distraught little bean. He breaks my heart when he's like that--sort of pathetic and inconsolable and huge-eyed.
After crying a lot I finally managed to rock him to sleep. And he slept and then nursed and then slept and then nursed and finally woke up, with a little wan smile on his face. DH put him in the Bjorn, as he does every morning when they do guy things--like make espresso and take out the trash--and we went for a walk downtown. By the time we got back Bean seemed more like his usual happy self. And when we put him down on a blanket on the floor with his rattle he was THRILLED to play there all by himself. Without anyone singing songs at him, or banging his toys, or cooing at him, or telling him to look or roll over, or picking him up.
And after about a half hour of delighted squirming--during which he had an extended babble conversation with our cat and we cleaned all of the crap that had gotten spread about our apartment (books everywhere, and magazines, and clothes, and newspapers, and dishes. Holy cow people, how on earth did it get to be like this??) he took a major poop. YAY. We love poop. This is poop number 2. In two days. A record of sorts, seeing as he's been on this whole anti-pooping stint of late.
And tonight, after we had him all cleaned up, he looked so sweet and fragile in his new stripped pjs... and after nursing and rocking he ZONKED OUT, his little arms thrown up above his head like a conductor.
Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, by Catherine Newman
Before I knew about blogs (holy moly, was there really such a time?) I eagerly devoured Newman’s weekly installments on babycenter.com which were later compiled into this book. When I was gigantically pregnant and my stomach looked like a huge gibbous moon, I'd read excerpts from her weekly post to my husband over dinner. He thought she was making the stuff up. "Three year olds say stuff like THAT?"
But hearing the stuff that I read also made the whole "We are having a baby" bit a tad more real. And later, when the book hit stores during sometime during the gloomy early months of spring when Bean was just bean-sized and mostly just a pooping, wailing little wobbly thing, it helped me keep my sense of humor.
Newman's writing is hilarious, but also self-reflective and filled with little gems that linger in your mind for days: making you want to be that kind of parent. Patient, forgiving, silly, and joyous. Perhaps my favorite quote of all:
"I'm a mean guy!" [Ben] snarled at his reflection, "Because my booty is itchy!" "Maybe that's why the Grinch was so mean," Michael offered---we'd just watched the classic cartoon together---but Ben said, "No, I don't think so," and screwed up his face. "The Grinch was mean because his penis was three sizes too small!" According to Dr. Seuss, the size problem was, of course, with the Grinch's heart, but you can't help wondering if Ben might be onto something ...
Self portrait
I did a 20 mile ride today (averaging just over 17 mph) through rolling farmland, up steep hills under shady maples and beeches. Past meadows of cornflowers, clover and alfalfa. I saw two tough farm boys, about twelve years old, tossing rectangular hay bails onto the bail elevator. Zipped past a field of black and white cows, lying down, flie on their backs, chewing cud. And felt the incredible gleeful surge of adrenaline in my legs. They're feeling stronger now, than ever before. I've been running daily, and am inspired by this lady to start training for a triathlon. I've always wanted to, and could, I think. If I dared. It's the end of the season though, and the only race I could find near where I live, happens on August 27 which seems too soon. I'd be all jittery and anxious, crashing into the water with so many other people. But when I told DH of my dream, he said "Beanie & I will be your pit crew. Let's go this week and time you on the course." Just like that. Such a major vote of confidence. I love that.