Ipod Bush

The Ipod is still missing; in fact, it's gone.

This is the only time that I will share a W vid. I do it because he mentions that on his Ipod is one of my most beloved musical artists -- he mentions him by first name only: "Alejandro".

An Austin, TX dude, Alejandro Escovedo is the most opposite thing from George Bush.. ever. And one of the most interesting people I have ever had the true pleasure to know.

Looks like the Ipod Scandal will end well, thankfully. Wish I could be as confident about our next election.

Dude, Where's the Ipod?

Or, Why I Will Not be Winning the Mother of the Year Award.

A week or so ago, a classmate of R’s (1st grade) gave her an Ipod. Uh huh, an Ipod. He told her he had three, so it seemed reasonable to her I suppose. When she showed it to me during the chaos of school pick-up -- kids yapping at me, freezing winds -- I was thrown.

“No! We can’t take that!” I blurted, “We have to give that back!” but instead of finding that boy right then and there, I decided to just chuck everyone into the car and deal with it all later.

The next day, the child wouldn’t take the Ipod back. I made a mental note to call his parents.

I forgot.

A week passed.

The boy’s father arrives at school this morning asking the teacher to point out R. She does. He asks for his Ipod back. “It was a mistake,” he told R, “Something he shouldn’t have given away.” (Ya think?) The teacher called me – fortunately that very morning during our school conference, I relayed this story to her and how I felt so embarrassed that I hadn’t called the family yet (who I don’t know) and have been meaning to return it – and even as she assured me the father understood and was not angry, she was laughing her head off.

“I’ll return it right away,” I said, while the mental ticker-tape in my brain was flashing, “loser mom-bad mother-Ipod stealer” over and over and over again.

Since then, I have turned my house upside down, scolded my daughters for losing it, scolded myself, looked under beds, inside pockets, through every cabinet and toy bin, searched the car, pulled my hair out, sweated, fretted, frowned and nearly cried. Found lots of missing stuff – my hair-cutting scissors, for instance, and countless magnets (don’t ask), missing toy parts, all my pens - but no limegreen Ipod.

I CANNOT FIND THAT STINKIN’ IPOD.

I would say why do these things happen to me? But, truth is, I already know why.

Someone else won the Mother of the Year Award I guess, and I am just another of the uncrowned.

NE Moms (and You Too)

Check out Bedhead's Romney/religion rant, "Opiate for the Masses" at www.newenglandmamas.typepad.com

Serious food for thought.

Sound Like You?

Happy decorating!

Top Five: Gifts for a (Giant) Three Year Old

If you started at the beginning, you know where I am going with this.

What does a Giant Three Year Old boy really want for Christmas? Especially one who doesn't so much play with toys, but mostly just acts out make-believe dramas all over the house (and don't you dare look at him while he's in Ninja/Batman/Spy-guy mode because you'll just startle him and then, he'll be forced to realize he is not Ninja/Batman/Spy-guy and you, YOU, will pay for that).

He does like to color, God bless him. So my list is as follows:

1) Crayons
2) Coloring books and paper pads
3) Paints
4) A car track (very basic, figure eight)
5) A robot

Ideas? Should I wrap each crayon up individually, and call it a day? (You with multiple children, and you who were among multiple children, will know the gifts must be "equal" -- always.)

I love Christmas. I really do. No matter what I do, it's Santa's fault.

Top Five: Gifts for an 8 Year Old

I feel afraid to ask B too much what she wants from Santa because I know she will remember what she said and then maybe, if she hasn't already, figure out the whole beautiful scam.

You with other 8 year old girls: please let me know what your kids want so I don't blow it.

Right now, I am going off my gut:

1) Julie, the American Girl Doll
2) A Webkin
3) something artsy -- Fashion Studio
4) something sportsy -- lacrosse stick
5) scrapbook with all the "fixins"

My girlfriend just had her first daughter, after two boys, and has felt her confidence rocked more than ever. Something about being a mom to girls -- all those insecurities, daydreams, issues and wishes played out in 3-D. I told her, and I believe this, that little girls will teach you more about yourself than you can ever teach them and so, there's nothing to sweat.

Until Christmas comes.

Top Five: Gifts for a Twelve Year Old Girl

I don't have one of my one, but I have a couple who confound me as far a gift-giving.

What would you have given your twelve year old self?

My list would include:

1) A dual-cassette boom-box
2) Blank cassette tapes to make "mixes"
3) A journal
4) Anything from Esprit
5) the new Elvis Costello record


What would you buy for a twelve year old today?

Top Five: Gifts for Your Mom

Need ideas for Christmas -- and need your help.

Be creative.

What would you give your Mom, if you could give her anything?

I would give:

1) Me, at 6 months old, because that is always how she sees me in dreams
2) A boyfriend
3) A video-phone
4) A best woman friend who lives next door
5) Peace of mind

What will you give her anyway?

What should I?

Marriage Two

So many people emailed me with advice and insight about what appears to be a "normal" occurrence in marriage. It felt -- it feels good.

That being said, not all advice works for everyone. I won't, for instance, enter into a fight by stripping off my clothes, as a wonderful friend advised me to do when things get rough. I can't imagine me -- all bare and out there -- or him (kinda ick, if I think about it), and then,... fighting.

But I love her for taking the time.

As for the lovely SarahClawson, who always takes the time:

"That Man" is 50/50 tongue in cheek. Just like life, and great fiction.

Marriage

The last few days have been an exercise in suburban cliché: Christmas wreaths and gingerbread houses, excessive volunteering and a girls’ night out.

I took my kids with me when I had no choice and even when I did.

As it turns out, despite the Giant Three Year Old who in the stress of crowds and chaos gets more Ninja then Zen, my girls are excellent helpers. They know already their legacy of “doing.” I’ll get that Giant Three Year Old there too, I swear.

I ran away this weekend every chance I had.

That Man and I cannot end the fight we always have: the one that makes me the sad guy, and I guess, the bag guy too.

If I complain about all this itty bitty stuff, all this humongous stuff, he worries that I am not “happy” – and that makes him unhappy. I can’t figure out how to fix it – and be honest at the same time.

He is a busy man, important in his field, and he has very little time. He rarely reads what I write here.

Still, I complain too much. He’s my best friend; I need to complain less to him.

Is this a suburban, at-home-mom sitch that I am in, or just the usual stuff of relationships?

And Then She Said

B: Hey, mom, is it weird when your feet hit your butt when you run?

Me: Um, no.

Me: Let me see.

(I tried it; running through my ktichen trying to make my heels hit my ass. Couldn't do it. Not even close.)

Me: It's not weird.

B: Is that why I was so slow running the laps at school?

Me: No! I think it was just 'cause you were talking too much, remember?

B: Oh yeah. HaHa, that was funny ---

Me: Not that funny.

B: (Pause). Yeah. (Pause.) You looked funny running.

I Will Not Pretend

This is what happens when your daughters learn and love music. God bless the guitar and the pen.

Martha is the daughter of my favorite songwriter, Loudon Wainwright. I worked with her mom Kate and her aunt Anna. It taught me what chick rock really is.

Chicks Must Rock

It distresses me that you can no longer see the Joan Armatrading video. -- and I am not sure why that is. I urge you instead to find it for yourself on YouTube.

It’s harder than I thought to find the chick tunes that I love…

Good example right here: Carole King wrote this famous song. See her there, in the background? Hear the way they made fun of her hair, of her? She WROTE this song…

If you have a daughter, get her a guitar or drums this Christmas.

PS: JT is hot.

Soccer Update

She didn’t make a travel team.

I am pretty sure that she didn’t even come close.

When the news came, her little sister was taking the trash out, and so she and I had a moment alone. (Her younger brother is still clueless.) I told her the truth as she was reading the letter; I wanted to give her some heads up. She read it herself – it was a nice, vague kind of way of saying “No.”

Her sister walked in the door, post chore, and that girl of mine said, “I gotta letter about travel soccer.”

Her little sister, her arch enemy, slammed her hands to her ears, and looked right at me:

“I don’t want to hear that she didn’t make it.”

She didn’t, I said.

The little sister shuddered: I saw her whole body shake.

But my oldest? The one who didn't make it? She walked toward her to make it better, to soothe her, her little sister.

I said “better luck next year” because that seemed the only thing to say, and then they giggled and ran off together.

I guess we're over it.

How Not To Raise A Pacifist

That Man came home after three weeks in posh hotels with really hip people. He was home less than 24 hours before he left again, but this time, he left with us -- for a long weekend away to his inlaws he had no part in planning. It was the ultimate kid and family culture shock.

When the weekend ended and we returned to the picket fence again (after 11, yes eleven, combined hours in the car), he was accosted by my middle daughter's begging to find a "cool" game on the internet. He was tired, worn out, but he relented. (She's 6; he isn't.) I was happy that he was happy to do it: after all these days and endless hours, he still was willing to be involved. I dug into the piles of mail, boiled the water for more mac & cheese, and felt satisfied and good.

Not fifteen minutes passed when my gut got the better of me.

That Man: I'm not so sure you should play this game.

He shields the screen; he giggles nervously.

R: Why, Daddy? It's good you found this game! It's fast and it has BLOOD

Funky Chick Goodness

I am heading out at 1pm tomorrow with ALL my family to Jersey to visit my sister. Very happy to get a change of scenery and actually, strangely, even looking forward to the 4 plus hour car ride with us five. Will download some This American Life’s and when the kids get in the car zone, either asleep or day-dreaming, me and That Man will listen to our hearts content, me with a giant ice coffee and everyone all strapped in and in one place and zooming down the road.

Before I go, it occurred to me that there have been too many male voices in my music showcases, so here's Joan, reminding us to show some emotion. And shake that thang at the same time.

Oh God

That Man saw something on TV lately about how when the earth heats up enough as it’s expected to do, a cloud of pollution (for lack of a better word) will encircle the globe causing natural condensation that will then cool the earth down. It’ll save the planet, allowing humanity to ride on. He was in a hotel in New York, lonely I like to think, and he told me he thought, “If this is true, there must be a God.”

That same day, I heard a story from my friend who works in the NICU. (Sometimes she unloads her tales to me, partly because she knows I crave the drama, and partly because her husband does not.)

Story goes: mother of a three week old baby wakes to find the baby in her bed, where she had nursed him all night, unresponsive. Infant rushed to the hospital and within little time, all the experts agree -- the baby is virtually dead, brain-dead, a vegetable. The mother believes she inadvertently smothered him, which may be the case, but the doctors mark it as SIDS. This woman suffered several miscarriages prior to this pregnancy, which was the result of IVF. This was her miracle, her healthy baby, her dream come true.

Justice? God? All I could think was if there is a God, what kind of crazy, unbearable lesson is trying to be taught here? No kind and loving God would allow this to happen. This is mean. Unfair.

My friend, the nurse, a believer, who said this was one of the worst things she has dealt with in her career, didn’t cry when she told me. I did. (She cries all the time about other stories I tell; she is never afraid to cry). I asked her, why? Why aren’t you crying? She said, I could help that woman that day for that minute in some miniscule way that makes me feel better; you can’t and that makes you feel worse.

If there is a God, she works in mysterious ways. And I am either too stupid or too smart to get it.

And Now, Politics

My sister lives in New Jersey. (I no longer hold that against her.) Her youngest child is the same age, give or take a week, as my oldest; she has a kid in high school and one in between. Despite our age difference, the physical space between us, and the fact that we only have one child to link our day-to-day experiences, we remain very close. As in, on the phone 4 or 5 times a week close. I love my sisters, both of them, but me and she do the grunt work of living together. We check-in.

She checked-in today. It’s election day, after all, and in our family, casting a vote starts as a right of passage and become as natural – and important – as breathing. In my sister’s district, there were a few piddly seats to be filled, all mostly unchallenged, but there were also a handful of important ballot questions. (Oh, how we love ballot questions!)

She admitted to having researched only two of them beforehand: an open-space initiative (she’s for it) and a stem cell research bill (she’s for that too). The open-space question would preserve undeveloped landscapes in her town. The stem cell bill would allow New Jersey to commit tax payer dollars (and lots of them) to the controversial research (bias coming) that could save countless lives.

She was psyched to fill in those affirmative circles, and since she had time, she figured she would read and digest the other questions and make her decision on the spot.

The third question read (in part) as follows:

"Approval of this amendment concerning the denial of the right to vote would delete the phrase 'idiot or insane person' and replace that phrase with 'person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting' in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote."

My sister told me she read it twice, laughing out loud both times behind the curtain. She is normally the kind of bleeding heart liberal my husband has come to distrust. She said, “I usually vote yes down the line.”

But in this instance, the “idiot” instance, my sister voted no. She voted for the word idiot to stay.

She said, “We’re talking about a cure for diabetes or cancer or MS and quibbling about language at the same time? What the fuck? Yeah, keep “idiot”, keep it.”

I reminded her that if I lived in New Jersey, I could technically sue the state to prove that my own husband has “idiotic” political ideas that are sometimes “insane” and that he shouldn’t be allowed to express them with a vote.

She thought for a minute, and said “Cure for cancer, or your idiot husband? No brainer.”

I love my family.

Thursday Poem (Halloween)

It’s coming down the tracks
and I hear the loud howl getting louder,
the same way I hear you
when you finally work up the nerve
to make your own ghostly sound.

It’s coming down the pike
with all the roaring rush coming closer,
the same way you sound
coming home on your own, all candy chatter,
but needing me to pull your tights off
still.

It’s coming.

Someday you won’t hold my hand on the street,
or grab my thigh when the scary music blares,
or ask me if you can have more.
Someday you won’t tell me how very, very sad it is
to pack the costumes away,
or how you wish this night could last forever,
or how you think I am the nicest, most scariest of them all.
Someday you might feel those things,
but you probably won’t tell me.

It's rushing through the trees
and I feel the shaking shift down to my toes.
In the same way I know that
winter is coming afterall,
I know you are changing too:

before my eyes, like magic,
in all your October costumes –

wipe off the make-up and you’re gone.

This One -- For M

Promise to deliver more pith post Halloween, but for now, number 2 (not in order) of the Top Ten Greatest Songs...
M knows how important a good song is, and dammit, so do you.
Vote for your faves below and I'll consider it for the Top Ten.

Sweet Halloween

This is for You

With love.

Beautiful music is the elixir for anything that ails. And this is one of my favorites. So, I guess, this is for you and you and you too.

BURN OUT

I am totally burned the fuck out.

Partly from staying up late two nights in a row (alone) to watch a game I usually care little about. Partly because I am over-volunteered and under-supported with That Man gone now, day 10, or something like that. Partly because one of my closest friends confirmed that my oldest daughter has been bitchy and mean lately. Partly because another friend is suffering and I can’t help. Partly because I spent the evening hours dressed in a lab coat entertaining other people’s children while my own ran around having fun I wasn’t privy too, relying on other moms to hold their hands in Haunted Houses. Partly because I think my best friend from college thinks (because of this blog) that I am a miserable, always cranky wench of a mother.

There are so many parts to the burn out. (But isn’t that always how it goes?)

The good news is I only have one obligation this weekend (a game to coach and I swear, I swear I don’t care if we lose… again) and my mom is coming on Sunday. Also, in the last couple of days, me and the kids have hit a happy stride and That Man and I are talking more than we have in a while; it’s a miracle what the phone, and distance, can do sometimes. And Jury Duty is over. And tomorrow is not a school day and I can hit the snooze button and not feel bad about it.

It’s October in Boston and the Red Sox are winning which means that right now, this is the best place to be. Add Elvis doing Sweet Caroline?

Burn out be damned!

Thursday Poem (Haiku Sox Version # 2)

It is way too late
But I write baseball haiku
To say go Red Sox

Another Thursday Poem (Haiku Sox Style)

Oh my fucking God
I never knew I cared so:
It's only a game!

(For Major Bedhead -- http://thebookishone.blogspot.com/)

Thursday Poem (Haiku Sox Version)

National anthem:
Take me out to the ballgame
Ringing in my ears

Jury Doody

It was a painful seven hours.

One might think being without kids in a quiet room for an unlimited time might be a good thing. It’s not so much; at least it wasn’t so much for me.

In a crowded room of a cross-section of people hearing the dire and depressing tales of criminals and supremely unhappy people, one really gets the message: count your fucking blessings.

Count 'em. Right now.

Your life is good.

More Teachable Moments (Not)

Early evening. Unseasonably warm night. Sitting on steps outside, breathing fresh air, sipping ice cold beer and recouping from the day at Jury Duty (more on that later). Giant Three Year Old bursts outside, animated and excited.

He: Mom! Mom! The moon!

Me: I know, I see it. Say hi!

Silence.

Me: He sees you. He’s seeing you! Say hi.

He: But he doesn’t have a face.

(Wait? Not everyone sees the face in the moon?)

Me: Sure there’s a face. See the two eyes and his mouth. See it?

(Thoughtful silence while looking at the moon.)

He (sheepishly): Hi moon.

(Pause.)

He: But, he’s – he’s not talking to me.

Me: Well, he’s too far away. Maybe he is talking to you and we just can’t hear him. But he can see you and you can see him. So it’s good to say hi.

He: Maybe he’s sleeping.

Me: Well, maybe.

He: Why is he sleeping?

Me: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if he’s sleeping. Maybe he’s awake and not talking. Just say hi moon! Goodnight Moon!

(B & R clamor outside. Simultaneous chatter about who-knows-what, all urgent and extreme.)

Us: BLAH BLAH YADA YADA.

(Back inside to clear plates, pick up noodles off the floor, explain long a’s and long o’s, negotiate bedtime vs. TV time. etc.)

(Then, later...)

He: Is he snoring?

Me: What? Who? What? Who’s snoring? You mean the moon?

He: Is he snoring? LIKE YOU.

Me: I don’t hear it.

(He pokes head outside.)

He: OK. WAKE UP! WAKE UP ... DAMMIT!

Me: Nooooo, K, nooooo. Not niiiiice.

He (running away): HAHHAHHAHAHHHAAAAAAA!

Me (plaintively): But, but, it's the mooooon. We like the moon.

(Deep breath.)

Me: TIIIIIMMMMME FOR BEEEDDDDDDDDDD!

Thursday Poem

It Goes Like This:

I put on my bare feet
to dance better:

the music and the writing
the music and the writing
the music and the writing
the music and the writing
the music and the writing
the music and the writing
the music and the writing:

I feel all the crumbs of the day,
everything I was meant to brush away,

gone.

A good song,
a lyric,
a string of pretty words;

sweeping
waits.

Soccer Mom Seeks Advice

Try-outs for the Under 10 soccer travel teams happen this weekend. I’ll be there to help out -- half out of volunteer guilt and half out of complete interest. How good is good, I wonder? How competitive is competitive?

I’m of the parenting philosophy that disdains the “everyone gets a medal” theory. I have no problem with straight-forward winner/loser competition. Most kids are remarkably resilient and hopefully, getting a part in the play or making the team is not the end all be all but just one of a bunch of things kids do for fun.

(Which I hope includes dodgeball -- kick ass, knock-em-out dodgeball.)

So, anyhoo, my own daughter is desperate to try out. And this is a conundrum.

She is on the younger side of U-10, just barely eight years old and she is a feather-weight to boot. She sometimes still runs like a chicken flapping its wings. She trips a lot. Over nothing. Sometimes she tries to kick a ball and just misses it: I mean, totally misses it. She hassles me every moment of practice -- wants me to be the mom when I am there to be the coach.

On the flip side, she’s pretty fast, knows where to be on the field, understands some of the (dare I say) physics of the game, can be fierce and feisty, and mostly, really, really wants to be good.

But she's not quite yet "travel" team material. (I think.)

I explained the odds of making a team to her (there are four travel teams from our town; what’s up with that? There was ONE when I was a kid) with salt shakers on the kitchen counter: 1 out of 3. Understanding that, knowing that, she still wants to go for it.

So, should I put that kid out there for something she might not be prepared for and catch her when she fails, if she does, which odds are, she will? Should I shake off her desire to try-out with pat little Mommy excuses that she might not buy anyway?

And what’s with all this anxiety I so obviously have (and she doesn’t seem to): am I afraid that I might be the sad one if she doesn’t make it? And what if she does make it: it means dragging my kids in way more directions way too many days (and nights) of the week, and wait, shoudn't I be opposed to that?

The try-outs are putting all my loud mouth “thoughts” (rants?) on raising kids to the test (see MOMiifesto).

To try-out or not to try-out? That is the question.

Your “answers” go below.

Ode to Teachable Moments

Late afternoon. SUBURBS.
My three children, discussing a group of foreign women:

B: They are not Spanish! They are Pork-e-gese.

R: They are wha? Por --? They are… what? Chinese?

B: No! Pork-e-gese.

R: Oh. Well, they sure are from another world!

B: Yep.

Giant Three Year Old: THEY ARE FROM PORK-E-GESE WORLD!
(Sword slashing for effect.)

R: Maybe that’s why they are brown.

Me: No! Wait! They are many people of all kinds of colors who are from this world, I mean, American -- people who were born here. All kinds of people, you know?

Silence. Awaiting meaningful teachable moment. More silence.


B: Well anyway, all I smell right now is grass. I think I might fart.

Halloween Thought Number Two

This video has encouraged me to dress my kids as speed bumps for Halloween. Or maybe ghosts, in extra long sheets without eye-holes. In the interest of safety, this woman has turned her child into a character from "Eyes Wide Shut" or the "Davinci Code" or worse. But the look on her concerned face with regard to the mask is mine almost every day with regard to everything -- "huh? somethings just not right here.."
My mother sent me out for Halloween when I was 8 or 9 (in the 70s) as a scarecrow with a blunt edged stick strapped over my shoulders that held up fake, straw stuffed arms. Pretty sure I either blinded or knocked out a kid or two every time I turned around. But man, I looked hot and got some serious chow that year. Thanks mom!

Halloween Thought Number One

In Target, the pumpkin pot-holder met all the criteria for purchase: so cute (with emphasis), useful (I need it!), and cheap (how can this possibly affect the bottom line). I swooped it up triumphantly, if not a little smugly, and took it home to hang on the handle of my sleek stainless steel oven.

Now?

Its’ toothless grin leers back at me every day, all orange and taunting, as if to remind me: yes, this IS the woman you have become.

A woman with holiday-themed pot-holders.

What’s next? A Christmas sweater that lights up and sings carols? Cookies baked from scratch? Permission slips returned the next day with “An Apple for Your Teacher” sticker smacked on it?

It’s a good thing I consider Halloween pretty much a National Holiday or else I might have grabbed that stinkin’ pumpkin and stuck both our heads in the oven.

On Whining

I once knew a woman who halted her kids’ bratty chat with the simple phrase: “I don’t speak Whinese.” Sadly, this one liner never worked in my house. My kids would mostly look at me with this “what kind of nonsense are you sputtering now” kind of look, and go right back to whining. Ignoring them when they talk that way has worked, which I guess is the more literal form of “I don’t speak Whinese.”

As in, “Huh? Wha? Are you talking to me?”

I’m not sure exactly what the topic on the radio was today – maybe it was Britney Spears or something about how marriage can be hazardous to your health – but for about an hour or so, the banter seemed to center around our “whining” culture. There was a constant train of conversation about how we as modern Americans have become so weak in our ways, so entitled, so… whiny. (I was ready to agree even before I started watching Ken Burns’ “The War,” but I am completely down with the idea now… to a degree.)

At some point in the radio show, a mom of three junior high school boys with the crabby husband who was spending all their money called in say her a marriage was affecting her health. I listened when she explained that after so many years working outside the home, she had recently decided to work from the home (mostly to watch her boys and the father-in-law who was living with her family) and that now, she was suffering from high blood pressure and panic attacks. I listened to this woman, who described how her husband would rage at their financial problems (mostly caused by him), and how she worried she wasn’t cut out for the job she seemed to be assigned. All I could think was, damn, I hope this woman has some friends and also, how brave to share her problems with everyone ON THE RADIO.

The host responded in the way that she usually does, mildly catty, mostly benign and repetitive, but then, unhalted by her, caller after caller proceeded to destroy this woman, this “whiner.” One said, “Why did she have three kids if she didn’t want to stay home with them?” with no regard to her financial situation or her own desires. The next, unmarried and older, couldn’t understand why married women could bitch so much – her mother, who raised her in the ‘50s, never complained after all, not ever ever, never, not once.

Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she never read Betty Friedan either.

Do we "modern" women whine more now than the women, the wives and mothers who came before us? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just that we have a louder voice and the confidence to use it. Is burning your bra “whiny”? Or something else entirely?

Let’s be clear to ourselves and the culture around us: there is a big difference between whining and complaining.

Whining is a negative, desperate lament, which at the root implies -- why me, woe is me, oh poor me – as if that lament could change an outcome. (It shouldn’t.) A complaint is an aggressive acknowledgment of something wrong, or a wrongdoing, or of a problem that needs attention. Generally speaking, complaints get action. (And they should.)

Look at it this way: children who whine never get cookies. Children who complain about earaches get the care they need and deserve.

People whine when they are powerless and can do little else to reach an end result.

People complain to point out a problem, to spark debate, to force change.

I complain all the time. I complain about my kids, about That Man, about my kids’ schools, about speeding on our street, about our community in general, and about all the other (much bigger) problems in the world. I complain all over the place: here, in this virtual space (what a relief!), and with my friends and family when the shit comes up, and even to the powers that be in my town and my state and even my country.

Sometimes complaints rebound in helpful advice from another who knows better or more. Sometimes complaints create pacts and plans and petitions, and lo and behold, you get Stop Signs. And sometimes complaints change laws (think: the 19th Amendment) or governments (think: the future).

Women DO complain more now than they did in the 50s, that’s for damn sure, and I am proud of that, and I am grateful for that.

I wish I had a cell phone with batteries that always worked because I would have called into that radio show to defend that woman, who though probably reaching out in the wrong direction, was reaching out nonetheless. She was expressing a legitimate complaint and she needed and deserved some help, or at least, a friend.

When you feel the urge to whine coming on (which hell knows, I have had), please think of this man, Professor Randy Rausch, whose words are such a beautiful testament to “no whining allowed” and also, “what really matters.” And I bring some of his words to you, in this link, courtesy of Margaret, who by the way knows her way around a complaint and the difference between that and a whine.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/09/018520.php

And if you want more of what he says, make a complaint here, and you know, see what happens.

Laughed Out Loud

Which is rare for me really. Sorry to be so video heavy (did I mention it was hot? or that I am bored). This Anita Renfro bit is genius. Promise that later this week (when it cools down) there will be less vids and more words. Until then, OMG -- love it!

Music for a Hot Day

When my girls were toddlers they would sing this Nelly song all the time at bath time, or whenever prompted by me, which I did often mostly to embarrass my family. This version, by Jenny Owen Youngs, is pretty sweet, especially for a 90 degree fall day in New England.

Comments are for YOU

Comments are for everyone, Devlyn: even you.

Click on the "comments" icon and you, too (!), can lay your burdens, er, thoughts down.
Click on the "comments" icon and you can see how others laid it down.

There aren't any rules about who can say something here (Devlyn); it's free speech to the umph.

Try it. It feels good.

As I said to Sarah, it feels like a virtual dinner party -- except no one interrupts. How great is that?

Del Puckett - Charlie Brown - Linus and Lucy

Oh Happy Day.

It's War Too

I am an admitted pop-culture junkie. Love the reality TV, the celebrity gossip, music, film and most everything else that sweeps up the masses. So while I didn’t watch it all (I swear), I did check in with the Emmy’s the other night and saw Sally Field get bleeped.

If you don’t know what I am talking about – good on you for reading literature or meditating or sleeping through it – but basically, she was censored for saying a bad word.

Sally said some compelling things in her speech which most of the media is NOT talking about. She said or something like: "May (mothers) be seen, may their work be valued and raised... especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait -- wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm's way and from war."

And then she said (and even though it was not aired, you could have guessed it): “If mothers ran the goddamn world, there would be no wars.”

I like Sally Field, I really do. (I once watched her dance -- with Andy Garcia -- to a Cuban band I was working with in LA and she looked great enough for me to be alternatingly jealous and happy.) And I don’t like war, I really, really don’t. But with regard to that one line, that news-ticker money maker, I gotta beg to differ.

I know what she was implying: it's beyond words the pain of a woman who buries her son or daughter killed in combat. But there's more to it than that.

If she was suggesting that women are better mediators or negotiators, that might be true. God knows, we chicks like to talk. We are experts at saying aggressive things to one another in about a thousand friendly ways – and we almost never come to blows afterward. We are all for non-violence: just think about how many times we say “hands are for holding.”

But have you seen a mother bear defend her cubs? Usually someone dies. Threaten our kids, our homes, our everything? Most mothers will fight like the crazed Ninja killers they never knew they were.

Engage us en masse? We can organize in a second. Consider the moms with sick kids who team up over broadband with other moms to advocate for and actually make change in the medical community. Consider the moms in crime-ridden neighborhoods who raise fists to the infiltrators killing folks in their communities. Consider the moms with children in foreign conflicts who fight for effective battle armour in the military community. Consider how quickly you can figure out childcare for a mom who’s sick in your OWN community.

Do we start conflicts? Not so much, at least not so much historically, but history also has many examples of fierce and blood-thirsty warrior women, many of them mothers. Motherhood is not for wimps. And when one of us loses one of our own to war (or Autism or cancer or drunk driving) we rage against the machine with such a ferocity, the entire world feels it.

That’s war too. And a good and worthy fight for sure.

Pissed and Vinegar

I’ve been struggling for an hour to come up with the perfect opening line. By struggling I mean: pacing around, making dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed, smoking butts, and switching between the radio and the TV for distraction. I have not been “writing” per se, except for in my head -- where naturally I do my best work.

I’ve convinced myself that the perfect line will sum up all the piss and vinegar of this day so well that I will become so satisfied with it that my anger will simply just melt away.

Instead it boils down to this: there is no perfect line for a pissed off day. There aren’t even really sentences for it.

But bullet points work -- mostly because they encourage reading between the lines – so I offer some here, all pissy and without editing:

1) Children should say thank you to the paid employees or volunteers who run the activities they are involved in.
2) Parents of children who do said activities should do the same.
3) Do not complain about something completed if you were not involved in completing it.
4) Your opinion only matters when you express it. Find a way to express your thoughts. No excuses. Email it. Or write a letter.
5) Vote.
6) Even if you want to say “No”, find a kinder way to say it. “No” is a great word, and I encourage it, but be respectful of all the people who always say “Yes.”
7) It is not difficult to slice oranges!
8) When you’re doing all the work and notice someone who is as well, say “Thank you.” It matters and you might be the only one saying it.
9) Do not, as someone who is running an activity for my child, be angry when I go to said child who is bawling and barely breathing and hiccupping with distress and say, “she was fine until you came down” when you know full well that I was watching every minute from a very far distance while that kid who never cries cried uncontrollably. Until I came. Helped her, and sent her back to you because she is not a quitter, which you should have noticed.

God, I’m a bitch. I am also pathetic in the way that I hang on to my upsets, and even more pathetic in the way I express them.

My grandmother was a do-er of the first degree, and my mother too, so it’s in my blood. My grandmother was also WASPy polite and contained like my mom, so I regret (sometimes), as I am sure they do (all the time), my public beefs. But they loved manners and really, isn’t that all I am talking about now?

It’s been a long time since I wished more people would do the work that only a few people do. It doesn’t bother me anymore, but it does make me want to throw in the towel from time to time. I know there is a small minority in every town (like yours) who sign up to do the stuff that needs to be done. I understand as well that the people who don’t either never will or have reasons for not doing so, but slicing fucking oranges? Who says no to that?

And by the by, some of us are not coming to our crying kids to annoy you or because we baby them, but because we actually have a reason to be there and the ability to help.

Piss and vinegar in my veins only turns me sour. So I leak that crap here, and hope against hope that I become better for it.

Still, I worry and wonder: am I the only one who has these pissy days? Really? Is it just me?

Most Wonderful Time or Black Tuesday?

7:15 Everyone awake and almost dressed.

7:30 Hair brushed and tied (a wasted effort on Girl #2 who will yank out braids somewhere in between snack and gym); kids fed, photographed; everyone antsy.

7:50 Walk to school with Girl #1. A quick kiss outside the door and she’s gone -- a nervous bundle of new-school-outfit trying so hard to be calm.

8:00 Waiting on That Man to pick me up.
8:03 Waiting.
8:05 Kind of pissed.
8:07 Did he go to the wrong corner? Forget about me? Decide to take Girl # 2 to school all by himself and deny me the pleasure? Is he lost? Can’t find Giant Three Year Old’s shoes? Does he EVER listen?
8:09 Waiting. Wave to friends in cars. Try to look casual and relaxed.

8:10 That Man, Girl # 2 and Giant Three Year Old pick me up on corner to drive the three blocks to the next school where we will not a find a place to park.

8:15 Get dropped off. Walk Girl # 2 up to her classroom, send her off with a Hang Loose hand gesture; do not receive one back. Leave anyway.

8:25 Greeted by friends who have dropped off daughter; they serenade us with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…”

8:35 That Man drops Giant Three Year Old and me at home. We are alone together again.

8:45 Self-satisfied sip of ice coffee (graciously purchased by thoughtful husband, the coffee that made him late; feel mild guilt for earlier crankiness); make list for the day.

8:50 Receive email from friend who calls today “Black Tuesday” -- I think she is sobbing on her keyboard.

8:53 Make note to self: figure out if I am more “Most wonderful time…” or Black Tuesday kind of mom.

9:30 Giant Three Year Old mosies into kitchen: “Well, that’s that. Let’s go pick them up.”

You can imagine what happened from there – pretty much the 30 minute intervals of peace and play and activity punctuated by “Is it time yet?” “How about now?” “Now?” And then, naturally, when it finally was time, he couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere, didn’t like the way his shoes felt, wanted to buckle himself (oh lord), and needed in some OCD way to get in and out of the car four times once we made it to the school to pick up Girl # 2. (This last effort would have had me perplexed and googling “compulsivity in preschoolers” but he saved me from that when he smiled, all nasty-like, upon his final exit, and said, “Mama, is this funny or pissed off?”)

Then it was onto the schoolyard and the gaggle of anxious parents of new Kindergartners sifting through the more seasoned school vets, all of them waiting for their kids to unload from the building. Everyone was neatly dressed and all of them, or most, were making the same kind of huggy-kissy love that comes with the first pick-up on the first day back at school.

Me? I slunk to the corners, sucking my summer sitting-on-the-beach-all-day-too-much-beer belly in and hunkered down by the stairs where my child would soon descend. I tugged at my t-shirt, held my son’s hand and realized how lucky I was to never feel this way all through school and wondered why I was feeling this way now.

A lovely woman came over, an almost-friend (you know that kind? the kind who should be a better friend and you’re always just on the verge of getting there but your spontaneous bumping-ins come at the worst times, like at the grocery store with three kids?) – that almost-friend greeted me so warmly, with such encouraging non-small-talk kind of talk that it was just the thing I needed to get over my first-day jitters.

My daughter came soon enough and was happy (read: exhausted) enough to escape quickly with me. And we did. Home to greet Girl # 1 who walks home. No homework tonight, but forms to fill out, and routines to begin, which we did, despite the coaching meeting I needed to attend at 6pm with all three in tow. (The meeting was outdoors. Seems good right? But Giant Three Year Old learned that stomping on bleachers makes an hellaciously gigantic noise.)

Off to bed with them. Me alone. That Man on a business trip. Nothing on TV. Time to get back to that earlier note to self.

“Most wonderful time?” No. It was a great summer all in all, despite our lack of camps, and I already miss our lazy mornings and knowing them the way I did these last few months, even when they were pissing me off. Black Tuesday? No. I am happy to see them off and curious as to what will become of them this year. And after Thursday, when preschool starts, maybe I’ll get that haircut I am so desperately in need of, or just drive around for four hours, ALONE, in my car.

It is in some strange in between place that I find myself now. All gangly and misshapen and weird in my skin, as I felt this afternoon at pick-up, so I am when it comes to me as mom now. I’m not the mom of three under five anymore (to be pitied? to be helped?) and I’m not quite the mom of three who are all off to school and sports and friends’ houses (early empty nest? begging to have tiny bodies at home, sweaty heaps to cuddle up to?).

I think I am the gawky tweener of Momdom.

MOMifesto

Before I leave for three weeks, I send this along: something to ruminate on and debate. I've been sitting on this group of sentences for a while, but it still makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. Maybe it will to you. Forget the stay-at-home vs. the working mom fight -- this is where the good punches fly.

****

PROFESSIONAL MOTHERHOOD

This is what I have learned so far about the world from children: it is tiny and enormous. There are bugs more interesting than great books, and questions about bugs and eyelashes and sadness and electricity are never-ending. It’s all or nothing, and also all and nothing. It changes daily. You learn to go with it.

This is what I have learned about motherhood, stay-at-home motherhood: it’s a jungle in here.

As it was in the office, so it is behind the picket fence. The geography has changed but the scene is the same. The playground has become the office cooler, the PTO meeting has become the company picnic, and there is jockeying and one-upmanship all over the place. I never knew that when I left the career I built to stay at home with my kids that I would have to contend with another world of professionals. My greatest nemesis is no longer The Man, but The Mom: the Professional Mother.

The Professional Mother has a lot of company. She is one of the millions of women who benefited from every wave of Feminism. She picked a job she wanted, or thought she wanted, and she succeeded. When they told her as a little girl that she could be an astronaut, she believed them. She never got a free pass. She worked her ass off every step of the way and she became whatever her heart desired: a marketing director, a teacher, a filmmaker, a lawyer, a business owner, a nurse, a doctor, a banker, and even sometimes, an astronaut.

Maybe because she could do it all, or because she wanted so badly to do it, she became a mom.

Who knows what happened next? Either she couldn’t or didn’t want to keep doing what she was being paid to do, or maybe it was hormones or finances or love or who knows what, but she decided to quit. She gave it all up for the kid, the brood, the life.

As it turns out, the everyday life with kids is a sneaky life. It is mostly boring and rarely rewarding. For the most part, it’s spit up, crapped diapers, Legos all over the place and getting dinner not only made but also eaten. It is not like the magazine pictures or parenting books, or art: it is getting through one long endless day without going crazy.

The Professional Mother takes it all very seriously. Turning down a lucrative career, earned and fought for, is ridiculously hard for anyone. Why not make a career out of the life chosen at home? Why not up the ante on what you do, so that it’s easier to answer the question of old friends and colleagues: what do you do?

So, the Pro Mom engages her newborn in sign language, music classes (I did this once: it was mostly toddlers, always mine, running into padded gymnasium walls), and potty training before they can sit up. She considers co-sleeping, attachment parenting, and nursing on demand not an option but a requisite. She relishes an entire Baby Bjorn culture that literally glues the baby to the bod.

The Professional Mother of a pre-schooler or grade-schooler engages in activities so numerous that there are children less than six years old who have tried more hobbies in one week than I have tried in my whole life. There’s Spanish, team gymnastics, travel soccer, tennis, baseball, painting, ice hockey and lacrosse all weekend. And it’s not just one of these things – it’s all of them, at once. Her multi-tasking is without limit.

It wasn’t long after I became a full-time mom in the suburbs that I realized there was a pace out there that I couldn’t keep. As much as I desired, needed, craved to be busy, expressing that through my kids and with my kids was a disaster – for them and for me.

Don’t get me wrong, pre-school is a life saver and we’ve dabbled in soccer and ballet and the dreaded music class, but never more than one of those things a week. Truth be told, it was way too much work for me to drag a baby and a pre-schooler to stand outside a 45-minute “class” for a 1st grader. Instead, I just blare the IPod at home: dance, gymnastics, music class. There you go.

Did I nurse each child for fewer months than the one before? Yes. Do I consider crayons and construction paper and pretty much no guidance about what to do with those things (‘cause Mommy’s on the phone) a good, learning day? Yes. Do I make cereal and cereal bowls accessible to my tiny kids and expect them to make due some mornings? Yes, I do. Do I feel bad about all of that? No, I don’t.

I think.

My soapbox is wobbly I admit, and the doubts creep in. I doubt my exhaustion after a day of homework and housecleaning. I wonder since I didn’t drive to five activities is my tiredness, well, less than? Will Harvard reject my child because she didn’t speak French fluently by 9? And now that I don’t have a nursing baby to lean on (literally), is it my convictions that still make me pass on more than one activity per week? Or my laziness?

The Pro Mom exacerbates my undoing. Even on the days when I’ve whipped up homemade play dough or read the same book six times in a row – at dinnertime! -- she is out there. She is out there tapping endlessly into her Blackberry the schedules of her accelerated children to remind me that no matter what I do, or don’t do, I am not doing enough.

The Professional Mother doesn’t aim to be mean spirited. Maybe we brought this culture of competition onto ourselves. When I was in college, we good, smart feminist girls waged a minor rebellion – one of many that stood to pit us against old-school feminism. It was okay to be sexy, we said, to like men and wear mascara and short skirts. We were confident in our sexuality as a tool, not a limitation, and we took advantage. Marriage was okay and motherhood too. We would indeed have it all: respect and hot pants, babies and promotions. It would be different for us. And it is.

We forced ourselves over the line in a lot of ways. We supported each other, hired each other, built businesses, built networks, made changes and money together. But when we made the biggest decision of our lives, to trade the cash and achievement of our former selves for a colicky, bundle of ridiculously cute panic, we forgot in the process where we came from. Maybe it was the distance from the shackles of our past or the cool comfort of our modern success, but somewhere along the way we forgot what essentially gave us the idea that we could be superwomen in the first place: each other.

Our mothers before us? They shoved us outdoors, they handed out hot dogs like vitamins, and they never attended or arranged a single pre-school graduation. The lucky ones schemed a life for themselves in between the wife-being and the child-rearing so that when the chance came, unexpected or anticipated, they seized it. If there was a bad guy or a naysayer, he lived in the house or on the TV. For her, the girl next door was a partner and confidante. A lot times, she was the one whispering, “Go, girl, go.”

For me, the girl next door is confused a lot of the time. Her degree on the wall and a gaggle of kids in her hallway, a husband late to dinner, a house half done, a host of parties to attend, she is never quite sure if she lives in world of content or discontent. She is never quite sure that any of the rhetoric is true: that she is indeed doing the most important job in the world.

The Pro Mom implodes her doubt and confusion. She creates a coping mechanism that is a schedule so mercilessly rigorous, so chock full of child work that her billable hours far outnumber any corporate power player. She doesn’t so much swallow her resentment and isolation, she creates it—and passes it along like some grown-up girl game of Telephone. The Pro Mom creates a culture of perfection, a stratum of achievement, that is impossible to maintain. Mostly, it’s not a lot of fun.

Where did our girl network go? Why does it only seem to exist in dinners dropped at the door when a new baby arrives? Why does it evaporate when the real work begins? Why has the camaraderie of our earlier feminist experiences backfired in the moment of our most feminine experience?

Maybe feminism has failed. There are those among us who still don’t truly value the role of Mother, plain old just getting the job done Mother. And most of them are mothers.

If I “missed” the registration date for a camp I can’t afford anyway, then I apologize to my children in advance. If I avoided the countless other activities that might make my kids smarter or nicer or better, than I apologize for that as well. But if the proof is in the pudding -- my daughter does a perfect cartwheel, self-taught in the grass, the other not only marches to her own beat, but bangs the drum herself, and my son, he can make friends with anyone -- then the pudding is all right with me. I know I am qualified and educated: I have no need to prove that through my kids. They are not, never were, never will be, My Job.

There will never be a moment when I see the world as unwritten upon as I used to when I was a kidless kid. But when I find the calm in the middle of my amateur mom day, in between the heart attacks and heart aches and volunteer work and laundry and the guilt about never quite doing enough for any body at anytime that is so much a part of that day, I don’t use up the peace and quiet on my kids. I do the best that I can do – for me.

With Kidz Bop in the background and a plastic golf club in the gut, there are not a lot of thoughtful silences anymore. Most of the poetry I write is cheap haiku – but write, I do. I make business plans after midnight all the time. I try to have reasonable conversations about politics when I find something newsworthy on the ‘net. I gripe to my sisters and my friends about the drudgery of everyday doing and I hope against hope that I will find one open ear who will honestly gripe back to me.

I am grateful that I made my new girl network, all the ones who tell their truths, who cry sometimes, who whine even, who make plans like me, schemes like me, and the ones who have come to believe that this life, after all, is good enough. I am grateful for those who give me who they are and take me as I am.

But I regret that this loose knit web of secret holders, who for the most part don’t even know each other, is such a small part of my life. I regret that this is who we seem to be now, a disparate coffee klatch endlessly seeking a home.

Still, I have a great suspicion that secrets like mine are being shared all over the place, on streets like mine, in towns like mine, with friends like mine, even by Professional Moms.

In the end, the world remains tiny and enormous. Children ask a million questions because there are that many. There is more than one answer. You don’t need to be a Pro to know that.

Does Not Equal Ego

It's occurred to me that some of you readers might have been confused by earlier "posts" by people other than me. Some of you even honored me by wondering if I was writing it all in another voice. Not true. It's just that sometimes my gals send something via email that is too good or too funny not to share.

This is one of those, from the in-town Annie:

"Had the bad judgment to allow a sleep-over last night with a kid (I adore) as mischievous as my own. Tired. Decided yesterday after 2 months of "no gym" I could make up for it in one hellacious workout. Threw my knee out and every muscle in my body is screaming mad. Cannot straighten my arms; my biceps are so pissed off.

Woke up to a roll of paper towels rammed in the downstairs toilet. Yeah, other stuff in there too. Tried to take out the recycling with my crippled arms, barely made it down the stairs to a driveway FULL of broken glass. (When the hell did that happen?)

Phone calls: TEN before 8:45. (Never let on that you are an "early riser". People love that.)

Labored onto laundry (ouch any day of the year). You know those HUGE Tide dispensers I never buy? My economy minded husband bought me one last week. It fell off the table today, and the spout broke off. Five gallons of laundry detergent on the floor.

Realized that my "house-cleaners" (these generous and loving and kind people who show up every two weeks with fear in their eyes) were coming today. So was the upholstery guy. Bad dogs into cages. Kids out of the house. Me off to chiropractor and massage therapist so maybe, maybe I can hold a cup of coffee tomorrow morning, or sit on the toilet perhaps?

Need to get better. Turtles to hunt. Fish to catch. Kids to spent time with chasing and loving the summer as it speeds by."

The theme of her email, so similar to my own rants, makes me realize that we all sit in the same boat.

(I use this metaphor, though lame, because this entire small town smells like seaweed tonight. The salt is so strong and murky in the air that even the seagulls are confused: they land in my yard, which is a few blocks -- but a half million dollars -- away from the ocean.)

Annie-in-town is in my boat despite the fact that her youngest is older than my oldest. She’s in there nonetheless. She's been chastised, berated even, for what other people see as her chaotic life. But she knows who her kids are, and who she is, and I do too. After all, aren’t we all – with big kids, or babies or teenagers -- aren’t we are all just bailing water, paddling along, trying to figure it out the best way we can to keep the ship afloat?

That’s why I include this stuff here, these brilliant messages from other people, to prove the point, to myself most of all: I am not alone.

Lori McKenna

One of the coolest women I know gave me the tickets. So, I traveled, what with depositing the kids at their reluctant grandmother’s house and then from there to the city where she was playing, about 6 hours in one day. I remember traveling this way for rock shows for work, and also for Dead shows. That Man met me there, after doing his own two and half hours on the road. He was late as always, but he was eager. Most men would not be so game. It’s a bonus for us both that his passion for music – and taste – equals mine. And I love her songs, and he knows that, and as it turns out, he loves what I love.

So we hooked up, two unencumbered grown-ups, in some town we had never been before and found ourselves in a standing-room-only crowd listening to Lori McKenna. Lori McKenna is the singer-songwriter, who of all the favorites that I have either worked with or worshipped, staked her claim in my heart and held on so tight that I will, even now, drive all that way just to see her. She is, after all, just a mom, like me – so if she can, I can.

People say she writes about all things “domestic” and to some degree, that’s true. It’s also a lazy critique. She is domestic (duh -- five kids, suburban Massachusetts housewife, married at 19), but to assume that every one of her songs is about that? It makes the domestic in me (who also married young, has three kids, lives in suburban Mass) close to crazy and downright offended. Listen like I have to every song she has written: this isn’t Cascade and Calgon -- this is poetry, plain and simple.

Just listen to “Falter” or “Pieces of Me” or “One Man” or “Swallows Me Whole” or “Ruby’s Shoes” or “Bible Song” or “How To Be Righteous” or “Monday Afternoon.” You’re a mom? You’ll hear yourself. A dad? You’ll hear yourself too. A human being? Yeah, she’s got something for you, too.

Her story is true and compelling, and so the publicist in me knows why it makes sense to talk about it. She finds a way with five kids and a high-school sweetheart husband in a small town like mine (yours?) to make music. She wears the same clothes as me. She loves Target like me. And somehow, when the time comes, she makes a space in her life to let her poems creep out.

After all the life I’ve lived (which so far has been quite massive frankly), this woman has the one thing I still want. It’s not her rock n’ roll life I covet – I’ve been there, I left that – it’s the balls she’s found to get up and tell it that I envy. So, it’s no surprise that when I feel compelled to explain or exclaim in words the way I do, it’s usually her singing in the background that I hear.

As the night in Northampton wound down, and after I hounded that poor woman for a picture of us both together (sickeningly embarrassing looking back), I remembered how much I missed that feeling, the one I had as a kid for the musicians who ultimately changed my life: Elvis Costello, The Cure, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Band, the Grateful Dead, Nirvana, The Jayhawks, Morphine, Wilco, Josh Rouse, Johnny Cash, Kristen Hersh.

God, I thought, here I am all kinda grown up, and still laid down like a kid by a great song and a guitar -- and loving it. When she hauled her own equipment out the door, in an old sweatshirt zipped over her sexy top, and flung that stuff into the back of her minivan (!!), I was sold for good.

When it was time to go, I held my husband’s hand so I could yank off the too-cool-sneakers that were blistering my feet and walked home barefoot to a hotel where we would spend the night without our kids, her music still echoing in our ears, our beer-buzz lingering like the one we had when we were teenagers falling in love.

It occurred to me then that nothing changes that much after all. What you loved when you were little, you’ll probably love when you’re old. I haunted record stores once; now I plunder ITunes. I have always loved music and songs, and well, not to be sappy, but I have always loved him too, and I still do.

And I love Lori McKenna.

I Don't Want To Stay Here

As in, “Mama, mommy, ma – Idunnawannastayheeere!”

This has been the perpetual complaint, the perpetual wail in fact, of the Giant Three Year Old today. Apparently, time alone with me has lost its luster for him. His sisters were both out with friends; one will even be gone until morning on a sleepover. The extent of his adventures were a couple of neighborhood visits and a trip to the library. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. My face and this place are intolerable for him now.

(Just ask the neighbors: they were victim to his vocal opinion most of the day. I am grateful to live on a street where this nonsense passes with some sympathy. Afterall, the sight of me chasing the screaming wailing kid down the sidewalk, screaming “Idunnawannastayheeere!” might have alerted the authorities in some ‘hoods.)

His displeasure is nothing new really. In the past, he has found our car to be insufficient. He would prefer any giant truck, and since I would prefer a Mini Cooper, I feel his pain. Our house has also not met his needs – it is “old” he says, which is true, more than 100 years old in fact, but I think by old he is not expressing his genius in antique architecture, but instead implying that hanging out within these walls is passé. He’s over it.

He is a classic third child. He was born into a house of siblings – they were barely three and four when he was born – so naturally, he has grown up used to the constant presence of people in his life. As a result, he alternates between loving the game-playing and chatter of us and wanting to escape from it all. When the girls were home only three days after the end of school, he implored, “Why are they still here?”. Now, five weeks later, it destroys him when they leave.

He’s my riddle, such a funny joke, and I never know what to do or what to make of him. He can play for hours making voices for a million inanimate objects alone and wanting no one, or switch to the raging social monster of today, incapable of finding anything worthwhile that involves being here, alone with me or himself.

“Idunnawannastayheeere!”

That Man suggests a nap for him, which almost makes me choke on my ice coffee. I have considered locks on his door and used a host of bribes, but for the last few months that Big Boy will only snooze when we are in the car, about ten minutes away from Target or the grocery store or wherever it is that I cannot legally or ethically let him stay alone. Since I do prefer him alive actually and would rather not be splashed across the front page of the Globe or in jail, I haul his half-asleep ass out and carry on.

(Still, don’t you believe the world would think more kindly of the parent who left her sleeping baby or toddler outside the grocery store than the one who left her kid outside the Casino? Neither is good people, I get that. But c’mon: priorities.)

I digress, and that’s a good thing (and the strange and welcome benefit of writing it all down…)

I concluded this wretched day the way… well, maybe not the way some Professional Mother would, but the way I would. I threw some ravioli in a bowl and sent him to watch TV in another room. His eyes were still puffy from his most recent distress (having to leave the neighbors at 6:00pm – late by any standards I think) but he was quiet. In that moment, he was the beautiful green-eyed, long-haired, long-lashed hunk of a Giant Three Year Old that I love. He said “sanks Mom” for the grub, sniffled, and then squeezed my leg. It wasn’t quite sorry, but for now, with him gone and not screaming in my ear, I’ll take it.

I don’t care if he spills the food or if he eats any of it. Also, if he returns, food uneaten and whining for ice cream, I will, just for today, give it to him.

Sue me. I don’t fucking care, because today, after this day and the way I feel now, when I don’t really want to be here either, his ice cream eating might buy me the ten minutes I’ll need – to breathe, to remember he’s just three, to remember he is the last baby I will ever have.

It’ll be the ten minutes I need to find my way back to loving this shit.

She's Old Afterall

I planned to post something different, but because it's my sisters birthday, I will delay the egomania.

She has always hated my poetry ("can't you write something happy?" she says) and would probably prefer a new pair of shoes.

Anyhoo, no shoes, but happy I hope, and Happy Birthday nonetheless:

Sister:

When I was little
I watched you
walking behind you:
how you moved,
how people looked at you.
I haunted your room
when you lived there
and more after
you left.

It’s not so simple, leaving.

I still can’t talk back to you
the way I want to
but I won’t take a dime
for a message now
or be conned into a backrub either.

My secrets,
for them you are insatiable.
But yours are all locked up
and nothing I do or say
will change it either way.

I am all grown up,
like you,
with no one to push around,
or tell on,
or teach.

There are myths
that people make up.
But mostly:
it just hurts sometimes
to be part of a family.

You taught me that.

It’s just a little bit
that a little sister
can say or do.
What you expect from me
and when the mood strikes
get from me --

A good song, a cheerful voice,
and the proof that we are all
okay.

Bombs Bursting

Catching up after That Man was home for FIVE WHOLE DAYS over the Fourth, which was great, a culture shock in some ways, but ultimately, really nice for us all. Lots of family beach outings ensued, and soccer in the back yard and movies, and That Man being helpful with all things domestic. But lest you think me/us perfect in some, um, perfect kind of way, there was also much boozing that kept the grown-ups laughing and carrying-on. And there were fireworks. Which I chatted through.

So now life is back to post-holiday normal, and by that, I mean messy house, less than nutritious dinners, a whining three year old and That Man gone again on a business trip.

Did I mention that I have forgone camps this summer? The notion started one crabby morning at the end of the school year, when lying in bed, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to go nowhere today? Wouldn’t it be nice to do nothing?”

(Note to future self: not ALL thoughts are meant to be acted upon.)

But the notion hung on (and the bank account confirmed) and so the mantra “no camps will be good for us all” remained the mantra. My kids want to be with me most of the time, after all, so until they don’t, let’s go for it. Let’s spend some time without distraction. I’ll practice what I have preached too often: kids need to learn how to play – with nothing, with grass, or dirt, or a pad of paper and some tape.

It is grand ideas like these that make one realize how much bigger the word “practice” is than “preach”.

So... I find sneaky ways amidst the not so gentle admonitions of “I am not here to entertain you, remember?” to get my proverbial ya-yas out. My glue gun works wonders with fabric (I can’t sew), so after trips (with all three kids – fun!!) to FancyPants textile store ($109 a yard?? who buys that?) and Wal-Mart (with a trip to the pool along the way), I get my voila! I also get some burned fingered tips, but the two-day transformation is complete -- apparently only for me, as no one said a word about the living room re-do. But that’s beside the point.

The brussel sprouts, given to me by Annie in tiny 2-inch pots, are gigantic now — a not-so-subtle reminder that summer is underway and maybe even passing faster than we think, but mostly an awesome architectural feature in the garden. Which needs weeding and pruning. Maybe tomorrow.

Right now I need to disinfect the musty towels, gather up all the toys and garbage and what-not that is splattered across my driveway, remind my son not to pee in the trash can (wicker one, no less), empty the dishwasher, fill it up again and see if I can find two kids’ shoes that match.

And figure out what to do tomorrow.

Goodbye to Anger

I wrote this, and I need to be done with it.

Anger:

Rage is such a silent thing
most of the time.

But inside the blood and guts,
the tissue and bone,
of every good decent human being
rage looms.

It’s a threat of a threat,
and a chance that the chance might come
to take over: become
an attack
a scream
a thrust of some violent words or
fists or who knows what.

The urge bows down at the feet of our humanity.
It only needs one lazy toe
to let go.

You fuckinloudmouthedbitch
justshutup.

For instance.

>>>>>>>>

I wrote that desperately.

I am less desperate now, for reasons that partly include this place: it has never been a bad idea to write "it" down.

So the anger is becoming an old friend and like all old friends, it feels funny to let go, but I do.

(Not funny ha-ha, like the Gigantic Three year old who, newly-potty trained opened up the front door of our house, dropped trou and pissed all over the steps for every neighbor to see. Not funny in that way.)

By funny, I mean the funny that happens when you sit up and see how fruitless all your anger has been. That kind of funny, as in -- wait, that was wierd: I wasted so much time.

So guhbye to that. Buh - bye. See ya. So long. Bye.

Apologies

She apologized to me for being “negligent” and out of touch. She felt badly that she might not have called or emailed as much as she should have. She wanted me to know she knew this – her misdeeds as she saw them – and that she really, truly felt bad about it.

She is 22, pretty much bald, wickedly cool and funny and smart, a very recent college graduate, who likes a cocktail and loud music and gossip, and she is back in the hospital dealing with the side effects of her battle against leukemia. Which she started less than six months ago. At about the same time she should have been whooping it up after four years of hard work that should have paid off into the fun of Senior Spring.

I get saying sorry. I have done my share of apologizing over the last 8 years or so. I apologize to my kids at least five times a week. The little sorries are easy, as in, “I know I said we could, but now we can’t and I am sorry.” The bigger ones suck (but have the biggest payback overall I think), as in “I am sorry I got so angry/yelled/made you feel sad about something you did do (that really didn’t matter)/something you didn’t do (that I thought you did)/or because I was just having a bad day and felt tired and grumpy and was crabby, and I feel bad about that, and I am sorry.”

Inevitably, the short-term payback comes in a sweet voice and gentle swipe of a cheek and a kid saying, “I know, mama, I feel that way too sometimes.” In the long term, I am hoping the payback will multiply, adding up to a human being who can admit fault just as well as she can accept a true apology, or better yet, find forgiveness when one isn’t even offered, which is, after all, the true secret to life.

But lately, I’ve been making apologies of another kind -- to my own college friends, who for better or worse, right or wrong, were often last on my list of calls to make or things to do, in the years that followed our own Senior Spring. I was married and a mother long before they were. When they were experiencing first pregnancies, I was realizing how much I hated my third. When they were reading books to newborns, I was tossing mine into a crib with a bottle that I taught him to hold by himself. When they were joining playgroups, I was sneaking out of all of mine. Plus we were thick in a lawsuit with a crooked builder, I seemed to be pregnant all the time, or at a meeting, was becoming if not so much depressed than manic with anxiety, and well, I just figured life was going on without me.

It was. They, pretty much on a similar timeline, had managed to keep their interests in line with one another. But me? Not so much.

Hurt happened. It went both ways I suppose, but I guess I didn’t really notice mine amongst all the other minor and major heartbreaks happening inside these four (not quite plastered) walls. I didn’t notice theirs, at least not enough. So over the last month or so, I’ve had to face up to that – the consequences of my absence – and while I don’t regret having made the choices (were they?) that I did, I tried to explain myself nonetheless. I took my lumps, and against the wishes of some very close friends (who say: and why? and for what?) I said: I am sorry. And I was, and I am. No matter what my friends say, I could have done better.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Like when I say to my kids, APOLOGIZE NOW (!!!) about a million times a day, and MEAN IT, I add when they don’t (which is most of the time). Really saying sorry means accepting fault fully, and only a grown-up (at least one whose self-centered ways have been shoved aside) can do that. I get that these kids are little and maybe not yet equipped. But say sorry, I say anyway, after which they do so, half-assed.

But the “sorries” that fly in the nano-second after they have done something bad or mean or against the rules because they think just saying it (without being asked to) absolves them, which it doesn’t -- these are the only apologies I have, until now, really despised.

Now, I have a new one.

Listen up little sister, sister by another mister, my cousin. Rule number one when becoming a grown-up woman: we DON’T apologize for being busy when we are KICKING THE ASS OUT OF CANCER. We never, ever apologize for that. Ever.

In fact, and if truth be told this is the hardest rule to learn, Rule Number Two: we never apologize for doing pretty much anything that makes or keeps us healthy enough to do more ass kicking.

The world needs more women who follow these rules, so get to it. I’ve got two little girls who are counting on me to do the same – and you too.

Summer Bummer: In Six Acts

ACT ONE:
Morning, hot, approximately seven days into summer:

Me: We’re going to the pool today. After lunch, after errands.
Him: Where are we going?
Me: To the pool. Later.
Him: What pool?
Me: Same place you had swimming lessons, but outside.
Him: Oh.

ACT TWO:
During errands aka: wailing, whining, throwing-self-on-floor hour:

Me: You know, none of us will go the pool if you can’t pull it together.
Him: IWANTTHEPOOL!
Me: Get up then and let’s pull it together.
Him: Alright. I want the pool. (Sob.)

ACT THREE:
In the car, headed home for lunch and pre-pool prep:

Him: When are we going to the pool?
Them: After lunch.
Him: It’s MY pool.
Them: No it’s not; it’s for everyone.
Him: NO! MY POOL!
Them: No, K, everyone’s.
Him: MY POOOLLLLL!!
Older Them: Listen, it was your pool inside where you had lessons, but this is the outdoor pool and i’ts for everyone.
Him: Oh. I want it.

ACT FOUR:
Home, lunch which he doesn’t eat because he is too busy doing this:

Him: When are we going?
Him: I want to go.
Him: Are we going now?
Him: Let’s go now.
Him: IWANTTHEPOOL.
Him: Now?
Him: NOW! (sob.) POOL!
Him: Is it my pool?
Him: IT'S MY POOL.
(Them: Whatever, dude.)

ACT FIVE:
In car, packed with towels, sunscreen, tabloids:

Him: WHERE ARE WE GOING????
Me to self: Oh for fuck’s sake, I taught him to talk for what reason?

ACT SIX:
Ten minutes at pool:

Him: I want to go home. I’m hungry.

Happy summer all.

She Loves Me, I Love Me Not

This “Author’s Breakfast” for my daughter’s second grade class -- I did not want to attend. I am totally, almost politically against these end-of-school year things. I find them to be unnecessary, inelegant and generally a great waste of time – not to mention, a waste of donuts, mini-muffins, and gallons of coffee, that even I, an addict, could not drink all of if I tried. Plus, I have three kids, for whom I must rally the same oohs and ahhs, for which I must "be there" for, for which I must celebrate every little scribble made or song sung, and frankly, I'm tired and so I get a little pissy about it. They're good kids, I know; thanks so much for loving them, and teaching them, but you know, after all, guh'bye.

When I walked in, with K, the newly potty-trained gigantic three year old, I said this to a neighbor/friend, “Yeah, hey, hi; let’s get this fucking shit over with.”

Did I really say that? I did. But even as the words spilled from my mouth, I regretted them. I am sorry for being such a bad-ass all the time. I am sorry for trying to be so cool, cooler than you, even here in some second grade class, my daughter's, this girl who is so unlike me, and who I adore beyond words that the books have for adoration.

I wish I didn't see myself as the rock chick with black nail polish all the time anymore. I wish I could see myself more the way they see me, the way she sees me: a do-er, a mom of three, a hugger, a boo-boo fixer, a PTO mom who attends these things, even plans these things. That's who I am now; I became this for her. Graciously, gratefully I should add.

My daughter’s poem, the second-to-last of the performers, almost made me drop to my knees. It was copied from the format of a book they read, so not totally original, but yikes, I wasn’t the only one crying:

I love
I love a lot of things, a whole lot of things
Like
My Mom
She is very funny, smart and nice
I love when my mom helps me with my problems
She loves me and I love her
Honey, let me tell you that I LOVE my mom…
I love my Mom

It went on from there, but does it matter? The bill was paid. I was done. It was guilt beyond the guilt that regular people know. Only mothers know this -- that joy/pain part of parenting -- that Guilt.

Someday, maybe tomorrow, I will write back a poem to her. Hell, maybe I already have.

Open Letter to Carmela Soprano, My Girl

I’ve saved all your Christmas Cards, Carm -- loved the one you sent of AJ with the goth face and mistletoe (he was such a baby then), and who knew Tony liked a sweater with a reindeer embroidered on, with a bell? (That photo almost made me pee my pants!)

It was always a joy to read your long letters, Carm, the ones stuffed inside the envelope, with all the news of the Family; you have an excellent use of language – and God, you're good with clip-art too. Good luck with your adventures in contracting and house flipping! You go, girl! And if I ever need a lawyer, even though, as you know, I am not Italian, I will be sure to call Meadow. You Soprano women… You kill me.

You must be so proud of what you have accomplished. Troubles aside – oh those long weepy phone calls we shared (God love the Pinot Grig, right?) – I hope you can see, can you see now, how everything worked out?

If you taught me anything, it is that marriage is a long road – what did you say? It's a horse-driven carriage we ride on over bumps howling with joy sometimes but mostly, it’s just shit we smell in passing. You reminded me – especially during those long dreary days you spent with Ton at the hospital – to keep on keeping on. You were – you are! – so brave, Carm, so brave!

I have especially enjoyed how our friendship had little to do with our kids. Mine are still so little (just wait, you always say, just wait) and yours seem all grown up now (oh don’t cry, you lush!). But going through all that stuff with you with the kids? It has given me great fodder for the future. Like with Fin: I loved that kid -- I know, I know, it's the preppy in me -- but I would have just died had that been me (as the Mom) when it didn't work out for Med. God knows we want different things for our kids, but still he was cute! And sensitive! And Med seemed so inspired by him.

I'll never forget what you said when it finally ended: "A mother knows what is best for her daughter." I guess you were right; God, I hope you're right. (I still love Fin though -- hahhahahaha!)

Our friendship was never about our husbands either. Waste management (peeyooooo!) and advertising? Ton and That Man don’t have much in common, and I loved how it never mattered. That being said, they can both shoot off at the mouth like the best of them, right? Ha Ha! (Truth be told, I wonder how mine would be with a little therapy? How’s that going for Tony, by the way?)

Anyhoo, I am not sure where you are going – I get it, I get it, you need some space, especially with that big shake up for Tony at work, and the empty nest thing (kinda – that AJ! I’m praying for him! And by the by, the new car? Oh no you didn’t!). Still, I want you to know, before we lose touch forever, what you have meant to me.

It’s hard to put it into words really Carm, but I feel like I know you better than anyone. You are a real inspiration: mom, career woman, and long-suffering wife to a Powerful Man. It’s been pretty obvious from the beginning of our relationship that your problems have surpassed my own – damn girl, you have more funeral outfits than any one woman should have! (I hope you don’t take that the wrong way....) Besides the age difference of our kids and the hubbies’ jobs, and all the money you have (did I just say that? out loud?), I still felt like we always had so much in common. You felt the same right? I know you did. It kind of goes without saying, right friend? Right?

I am thinking, just a suggestion, and Lord knows you have a lot going on, but maybe you should sign up with the Internet and get one of those Websites and write down all the stuff you’re thinking about and care about and want to gripe about? I would read it; I swear I would, like every day.

It’s just a thought.

Until then, thanks again for the recipes (you are so, so thoughtful) and thanks for just, you know, being there.

It's War

We are about to engage in a tussle, my neighborhood gals and me. We are taking on the big guns in the small town to raise a ruckus for positive change. We are activists all, ready to rally ‘round a good and decent cause, to stand together in protest of a wrong. We have a letter of petition; we have a plan, a committee, and a mission statement.

We want Stop Signs. (Maybe speed bumps, but stop signs --much much better.)

Lest you think I am being slightly, somewhat, perhaps a little ironic or shall I say, cheeky, I am, and also I am not.

Stop signs are good! Slowing the speeding cars on this street that is overflowing with kids (who like to play outside, who’d a thunk) is good! Getting flipped off by those in said speeding cars is bad! Very bad, and we are coming for you.

Give me Stop Signs!

The cheekiness lingers, I know. It comes from the same part of me that smiles when I am carded. It comes from the part that still does not believe I pay a mortgage. Or bills. Or have a Will. (I will die you say? With something to leave behind?) It comes from the part of me that still chuckles a little at titles hurled at me like Mrs., like M’aam, like Mom.

This is not the protest of my youth. That was the early 90s and the first Gulf War and, um, grapes and laborers, but this is now. This is Stop Signs, motherfucker, and I want some.

I do my best to meditate on the Big World problems. I actively engage in all elections, contribute money to Veterans causes, and argue effectively with my NeoCon husband my opinions and beliefs. I hang an American flag (because I still believe in this place) and remind people to oppose the war and not the warrior. I am encouraged and delighted and surprised even that our next president might be a woman, or a black man. I ordered a bumper sticker, and when the time comes, I’ll stand on a street corner with a sign.

But I am not, like many of us, walking on Washington in protest. Truth be told, I am not affected daily by the war (though I bawled my eyes out at the funeral procession for a fallen father and son from our town, to which I hauled my kids, all under five at the time, because it was important) and I doubt you are either. Most of you. The Big World problems exist around my dinner table, but sadly, ashamedly, I have not, as of yet, taken it to the streets.

For now, it’s Stop Signs. On my street. Which will become I hope, a kindler, gentler, safer kind of street.

Think globally, act locally.

They're Wicked Smaht, My Kids

R to B: I watched a movie in art today.
B: What was it about?
R: Um. Art.
B: Oh yeah? Mozart?
R: Yep.
B: I loved that one.

Women In Art

Have yet to see the real genius in YouTube but this comes ridiculously close.

Oprah/Cormac

Cormac McCarthy was on Oprah today. Somewhere my father is testing the temperatures of hell.

After They Come Home

Why does this shock me every time?

Why does it it amaze me in fact that within ten minutes of all three coming home, after seven hours STRAIGHT of all three being gone (the miracle of the post-pre-school playdate), in which I was so wonderfully accomplished, polite and cheerful, crossing off the items on my list with an upward, gleeful brushstroke, folding all their tiny clothes with love and ahhh, smells so sweet -- why does it amaze me that it is not only the silence of my house that evaporates (the kind of silence that I hate to shatter even with the sound of my own stinking voice), but also out the window goes any idea of order, of clean, of me being the woman I just was, NICE and SWEET and KIND and CALM.

But there I am in some kind of slo-mo dizziness each time they re-emerge from their lives without me, there I am in the middle of countless VERY IMPORTANT school papers (ie: recyclables) and gooey tops of fuschia yogurts, water gun damage dripping from the seat I just sat in, shouting the things I wouldn't have dreamed of shouting ten minutes before: "Speak one at time!" "You will know I am ready to talk to you when I look at you and am not shaking my hand in your face!" "No you can not do that -- probably ever," "Does anybody pay attention to anybody else in this house? I said never!" "Put it down; it's a knife!" "FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET!"

There I am, hands on hips, hands on forehead, hands making that shoo-shoo sign which is shorthand for leave me the hell alone for two seconds, in my twilight zone episode of motherhood, experiencing this which I have experienced so many times before as if I were experiencing it all for the first freaking time. Was the house really clean? Quiet? Was I ever nice to anyone ever? Was it all just a... a... dream?

Winning

We won our first game today and I am way too happy about that than I should be.

Even though I cheer for the other team at a good goal or a good save, I still wanted mine to win. But those girls, a hodegpdoge of kids, they listened to me, and when I told each one that they had done something good, they believed me. I believed me: they were awesome. I love soccer. I love how I get to be when I teach it.

Soccer is a complicated game built for a player with skills of all kinds: the physical, but the mental mostly. It is a game of precision and control, but also a game that anyone can play. I was once moved to tears by this description by Sean Wilsey of World Cup soccer, which I paraphrase and edit here (and for which I hope not to be sued):

"Soccer's universality is its simplicity—the fact that the game can be played anywhere with anything. Urban children kick the can on concrete and rural kids kick a rag wrapped around a rag wrapped around a rag, barefoot, on dirt. Soccer is something to believe in now, perhaps empty at its core, but not a stand-in for anything else.

What makes the World Cup most beautiful is the world, all of us together. The joy of being one of the billion or more people watching 32 countries abide by 17 rules fills me with the conviction, perhaps ignorant, but like many ignorant convictions, fiercely held, that soccer can unite us all."

What an amazing thing to believe, in our wartime especially, that a game can be bigger than its players or the rules. When I read this again, in sharing it here, I was newly inspired: for soccer (obviously), for the kids that play it all over the world, and also for my own simple desire for peace.

Kick the ball, spread out into the places no one is, find a player to pass to, help each other, defend and offend in equal parts, no one scores a goal alone.

Politics, schmolitics. This is what it means to be a soccer mom.

Then The Question

My friend Sarah, her husband, and then two girls made a very conscious decision to leave their suburb and opt instead for a life outside the outside. The goal was to live a simpler life, a meaningful life for them. They found a house in a small town in which they knew no one, grew some vegetables, clipped their budget, and in time had a son in that home with a midwife present. (She, a nurse, chose to forgo the conventional birth, the medical birth, and wrote about the experience so beautifully to me that I convinced her to publish it -- and she did!).

Sarah asks a lot of questions of herself, and I wish I could be as thoughtful as her. Her Post Picket Fence -- it's as complicated as mine, not as idyllic as she hoped or wished but maybe nothing ever is really, not even the things one chooses deliberately. But she went there; she goes there every day, totally committed literally and figuratively. I am honored to know her.

For Sarah, a recent question in a writing class was this: What will your life look like in 20 years?

"In 20 years I will be 57. I am so unclear as to what my life will be like then. I’m scared scared scared to think about it. I know and hope that the constant will be my husband. For now, we spend all of our time building our home – our homestead – planting sapling heirloom apple trees and peach trees and blueberries; clearing poison ivy and choosing some significant, meaningful name for our place.

I so fear that all of this will be for naught – that we’re doing it for the wrong reasons – huh? What reasons? Resale value? To impress the neighbors? To give our children a vision of simplicity and a taste of our little vision of utopia? To have a place we’d survive in if we truly needed to be self-sufficient? A place that represents purity and hard work and love and acceptance?

I cry when I think of what the “playroom” might evolve into. What will sit on its shelves? Will we break down and put in a TV to lure the kids back home?

In 20 years I want to be an expert – a gracious one so that I won’t feel nervous and self-critical all the time. I want to be active, interested, in LOVE with my life and my Loves and the World. I want the world to change and meet me halfway so I won’t feel so frustrated and like throwing my hands up in the air and wondering if anything is worth it. I want to be living, eating those apples, watching my children become adults, and holding the hand of my Love, traveling down the path we can hopefully choose together."

Where will I be in 20 years, or you? I'll get back to you about that, but for now, what I do know is that I am the luckiest girl alive to have the friends that I do.