15 of 40

Written 12/15/16

6th grade was the first time someone asked me what kind of music I listened to and I knew instinctively that "musicals and folk music" was the wrong answer. My seat mate Andrew Kim used to write down the weekly Top 40 on a sheet of notebook paper--his handwriting so small and perfect it looked like the letters were typed. At some point he gave me a tape: Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison. My musical education had taken its next step, though I can't say it every progressed much beyond listening to the radio and listening to the music my boyfriends played. And I kept listening to, and loving, musicals.

I've been listening to Hamilton a lot lately. It's a musical about the first Secretary of the Treasury--one of the founding fathers. So random and so incredibly fantastic. The songs are great, the singing is gorgeous and fun, the story is interesting and important. And timely. It's a story about the founding of this country--can I say the creation of this country? The land was here, there were people here--these songs are not about that or them. These songs are about the conflict and excitement that went along with winning independence from England and the early days of being the United States of America. My favorite song changes depending on the day and my mood. I love the king of England and his funny break-up songs. I love the women--their voices and their thoughts. I love the men--their duels, with both pistols and words. There is a song about falling in love. A song about not getting the one you want and continuing to long for him. A song about taking your shot to make the most of your one life. And a song about parenthood that I keep going back to.

Dear Theodosia, , what to say to you?
You have my eyes
you have your mother's name.
When you came into the world, you cried
And it broke my heart

I'm dedicating every day to you
Domestic life was never quite my style
When you smile
You knock me out, I fall apart

You will come of age with our young nation
We'll bleed and fight for you
We'll make it right for you

If we lay a strong enough foundation
We'll pass it on to you
We'll give the world to you
And you'll blow us all away
Someday
Someday

It's sung by two fathers and their voices along with the words capture so much of what it feels like to be a parent. A pang, a deep hope, a powerlessness, an eye to the future. It helps me imagine this group of young men not yet three hundred years ago--fighting to win their points, wanting success and power and money, all of them white, and on some level wanting to build a country that they would feel proud to pass on their children.

Not quite a month ago I stood in the small hallway between my children's bedrooms and listened at the door to my younger girls' room. It was quiet. The day before was Friday the 13th in November--the day many people were killed in coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris. On Saturday the 14th I heard soft stirring noises in my daughters' room and quietly opened the door. Daphne, my youngest, was awake. Cleo, her twin sister, didn't budge. I picked up my cherubic, blonde, blue-eyed girl and sat in the rocker with her. She laid her head against my chest and I rocked her, pushing my feet against the carpeted floor. There was no sound except for the rain from the white noise machine. Rocking, rocking, rocking. My child safe in my arms. I felt a deep desire to just keep rocking--it was enough action to feel like I was actually doing something, but it was soft and quiet and comforting, all of which I needed.

I thought about other parents in other parts of the world and how, no matter what their religious beliefs or country of origin are, they too would probably like to take a quiet moment and rock their children. Even terrorists probably would. That is confusing.

Parenthood is not the essence of everything. It is not for everyone. These days it is the essence of most things in my life because it is what I'm doing--what I spend the most time doing and thinking about. I spent the 14th of November with my four kids and my husband. We went to the marina in Martinez and played at the playground. Went for a walk in the grass, stopping to pet dogs and watching ducks and seagulls swim in a pond. We stood outside the skate park and watched a skater dad with three 9-11 year old boys. It was soothing and painful to watch my children. I felt foggy and dimmed, unsure what to do or say and then continually drawn back to being with these young people--encouraging my son to walk a bit further, finding rocks for them to thrown into the creek, watching the little ones navigate the descent of a steep hill.

I do not think all people are good. I do not think everyone's intentions are noble or right. I know mine aren't always. Hopefully they are most of the time.

14 of 40

Originnaly written on 1/11/17

Oof I am feeling triggered right now. Bursting out of my skin, mind racing, can't settle down to figure out how to calm myself. I found my way to Bloom, one of my happy places, so I can sit in beauty and drink healing tea, listen to good music, see faces of friends and gather my pieces

It is confusing to sit on the couch and listen to a man calmly speak about the importance of our democracy and the hard work it entails and feel tears falling as we move one step closer to saying good-bye to the first president I have actually loved and then pick up the newspaper two days later and bounce from paragraph to page, reading of the fierce dismantling that is threatening to take place. I don't and haven't expected uniformity but it feels so jarring to know that as I'm listening to Barack Obama, feeling pride and hope, others are booing him and saying he's the worst thing that has ever happened to our country. That he speaks of the fact that more U.S. citizens are insured than ever before and the incoming administration speaks of Obamacare as an unmitigated disaster that must be destroyed.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I took our son to his speech assessment today and the practitioner triggered me over and over. Our boy did so well--naming every single picture on the cards and adding more detail than necessary. Not hiding his face in shyness or fear. Listening to her and following instructions with that clear, open, beautiful face of his. And I know, and have known, that he is hard to understand and he needs help pronouncing many of his words. Even as he strings together the most complex sentences of any of our four children. I know he will be ok and there are people to help him and he will get the help he needs. I talked to him about it in the truck afterwards, telling him that we will see an ENT which stands for Ear, Nose and Throat, doctor who will help us figure out how to clear out the fluid in his ears that is making it hard for him to hear. And then we will go to some other appointments so that people can help him practice pronouncing some of his words. He listened. And he said "I don't talk so good because I have allergies." Prounceed with a soft G (or is a hard G?" Whatever G sound is the wrong one. Which sounds so cute. He didn't sound sad but the tears came for me and they're coming now. I don't want him ever, ever, ever to feel like he is not good enough, that there is something not good about him. Even though I tell him and his sisters that we all need help sometimes, that we all make mistakes, that we all know and understand some things better than others. Flaws aren't unacceptable. All of that and it still makes me cry.

A few days ago I read an article about a local high school that is trying to secede from our big, unwieldy, behemoth of a school district to start their own. It is a racist move, cloaked in other words so well that the people instigating probably don't even know or believe it is racist. They speak of it as protecting their kids, advocating for what their kids need, you would understand it if you had kids, that's why we moved to this neighborhood to keep our kids away from those other kids. . .
Which is saying that they think its OK for it to cost more to give your kids what they need. And if you can pay it, in this case those higher home prices, your kids deserve to have what they need. And those other kids don't.

Can't there be enough? Can we work to give all the kids what they need and not have that be a pipe dream?

13 of 40

Started on 8/2/16.

For years, most of my life, I've felt the lack. Wanting to be more. Wishing my breast were bigger. Wanting to have some of the things I see other people having. Having a hard time celebrating others' success. Eating two donuts from the plate in case they disappear and I regret not having more. A sense of scarcity. Why? From whence did it come?

I see it in one of my daughters now and wonder if she is learning it from me or if she has it in her blood from me or if this is a human trait that everyone has. I don't see it equally in each child so it seems. . .like a thing that some people have more than others. Or don't have. The fear of not being enough, not having enough.

I want to lay it down now.

There is enough.

I read this today, half a year after writing it, and it strikes me how much this feeling of scarcity rules us all. How can there be enough? I somehow know intrinsically that there is enough and yet feel in myself and see in others how we grab and hold tightly in an attempt to keep from losing. Like privilege. How scary it is to acknowledge that, as hard as my life is sometimes, it is easier than most. And that living in a world based on giving people who look like me more means that others have less, others have not enough. And if I sometimes feel like I don't have enough, how can I give some away to make sure others have closer to enough?

There is enough.

12 of 40

This is kind of a parenting blog though I write less and less about parenting. Although I think about my kids and about how I parent them quite a bit, I also think a lot about myself, the problems in the world that I want to try to help fix, my marriage, my work, my writing, etc. Last week in a phone conversation with an old friend, who is also a relatively new parent, I said "I always wanted to have kids mostly because I wanted to experience myself as a mother." He held back his laughter for a minute or so and then said "Someday soon I will make fun of you for that statement." Rightfully so.

The reasons I don't write much about my actual children are as follows:

1) The internet still feels new to me. New in the sense that I did not grow up with it and I have a hard time imagining/understanding the impact on my children to have details or stories about them published on the internet for anyone anywhere to read whenever they want. It makes me nervous and feels intrusive even though I love other writers' children unabashedly from afar based on the blogs they write.

2) It has taken me decades to understand that my mother does not know me better than I know myself. Not just my mother, actually. I am still stepping into the truth that I don't have to rely upon others' observations in order to know myself. I know myself. My mother is a writer and an observer. She started and kept a journal for each of the three of her children from birth until we each turned eighteen when she gifted us, one after another, with our books. I loved getting mine and still like to read it, seeing new details each time. I thought I would do the same for my children and actually purchased beautiful diaries for each one, kicking myself every now and then for how infrequently I have written in them. It felt like and was such a gift to get words about myself. I was and am grateful for her time and attention. My mother has made the three of us feel so special and important, not just with her love but with her noticing. It is nice to be seen like that. And. It has sometimes been hard to put certain descriptions down with a "No, that does not say how I really am." It can be hard to feel separate, able to self-define. This is not her fault, not something she has done to me. It a puzzle piece that fits into how I see myself and how I am re-learning to know myself. And I feel afraid to put into words the things I notice about my own children because more than anything I want them to find and know who they are in their own hearts.

Addendum to this is that as I write it I see how hard it is for me to claim my space. To allow myself opinions and beliefs, even if they aren't "right" or definitely true or without fault. It is easier for me to make space for others to be themselves than it is to make that space for myself. I am in process.

3) I often worry that I don't even really see my children. I am an observer too and I thought I would be a much more intentional parent, Instead its like standing in a hurricane, head spinning, waiting for a moment of peace. This is probably one of the most painful parts of motherhood for me--that I don't take the time to soak up who these individual little people are. That I am missing it. And yes I know I need to give myself a break in so many ways. This one is persistent.

More often lately I want to sit down and write descriptions of these wonders who live with me, who I had a hand in making. But these are the reasons why I haven't.

11 of 40

Originally written 12/7/16, posted now

I thought I had a choice and I really did in the sense that I did not need to work. We didn't need me to work for the money, though more money is usually nice. I dreamed of being a mom for so many years. In my 20's I would hang out with my friends who were moms and sit and chat with them as their child played in the sand and I would quickly think No way. Not for me. I will want to keep working. Wait, back up. For years before that I assumed I would work and have kids because I wanted both and it seemed like if I wanted both I could have both. But the more grown-up I became the more the math made less sense. And not so much the money-making math but the time-having math. How exactly would it work to have a job and a baby? I mean, they both seemed to require so much time. And by so much I mean. . .all of the time. I felt a little let-down.

I like working. I've almost always liked working. Up there I wrote out "have a career" as the thing I wanted and then backed up to delete it because, though I wondered and compared myself against the careers I was aware of, mentally holding them up against me like dresses trying to see which one might fit me, I don't think I felt strongly that I wanted to be an X like I thought I needed to be a mother. Jobs I've liked have been ones that made me think on my feet, make decisions quickly. Jobs where working hard made a difference and I could see results. Jobs where I interacted with other people. Hostessing, organ placement, Lawyer Referral where I answered phone calls in Spanish and English and talked to people about why they thought they needed lawyers. Even being the Assistant to the Director of Latin American Sales for a company selling heavy-duty diesel parts. I was often bored and surfing the newly-discovered internet though that mostly meant Craigslist and emailing my college roommates, I liked the parts where I was translating Spanish/English or Sales/Engineering. Liked helping people make the connection.

In that job, my first real job after graduating college, I spent a lot of time folded into my cubicle which faced no one and where no one but my boss, who was often travelling, could see me. I could hear the sales calls and the racist comments some of my co-workers made on the other sides of our walls but those felt less like co-workers than weird tent-city neighbors. I was in my own world unless I was on the phone or meeting with Jorge or sitting in the office of the HR Director-turned-friend Michele. She and I spent hours talking which in some ways I thought was weird but in some ways I now see as tangentially at least in the realm of her job. But not really. We talked about a lot of different things, including romantic relationships and by that I mean specifically mine at the time with my live in boyfriend and her marriage. She didn't disclose secrets of her marriage to me, nor would I have wanted to hear them, but she sometimes told me things like the fact that she, or he, always left the cabinet doors wide open and that he, or she, always got annoyed about having to close them but that figuring out how to deal with that type of thing was what long-term relationships were all about. I bring her up because she said at least three things to me that have stuck in my mind like rubber cement:

Don't feel guilty if you quit this job. Do you think they would feel guilty if they fired you? It's business. They would go on without you without a second's thought.

\

It's good for you to be working and be in school because under the glaring light of your attention your boyfriend will wilt like a flower in the blazing sun.

And then after my transplant:

If you are ever in the position of having to choose between having health insurance and buying groceries, your friends will feed you. Don't ever let your coverage lapse. (because in the land before Obamacare if I fell off my group plan for even a minute I would be booted off those in a heartbeat due to how insanely expensive I am to insurers)

I always knew I wanted to stay home with my kids before I even thought much about stay at home mom vs working mom. It was less about what I thought would be best for the kids and more about my own desire to be with my imaginary kids. To learn from them and to learn about myself with them. Aside from loving small children and loving to teach I imagined that being a mom would be the ultimate combination of being indispensable (why didn't I think that part through more?), illustrative and self-aware by nature of being in a new and unreproducable life experiences, Being most-loved seemed nice too. I was always the one who could soothe a baby, get her to smile and coo. I had my ways and babies always relaxed into me. But they also always lit up like the sun at the sight of their mothers and I wanted that. I wanted to know what that felt like. Plus I was already thinking a lot about what it meant to be a person and I wondered how that would look as the parent of growing, developing minds and hearts.

What I never thought about was that it might not be a choice for me. Yes, I could stay home and raise them but I would not be well. My mind would be going, going, going, churning, burning me up and I wouldn't be able to stop it. It's a lie to say I never thought about it because how could I not? I knew my propensity for self-analysis. I knew my mind. My cyclical moods, full of energy and hope sometimes, unwilling to get up from the couch, wondering why I ever thought anything was a good idea other times. 

When I went back to work part-time, I felt better. For lots of reasons--getting dressed up and thinking about what to wear, taking the train into the city and getting to absorb the people around me or getting to read many pages of something, walking around the city, being noticed and cared for like having someone hold an elevator door for me. Sitting across from my old doctor turned friend and now colleague to brainstorm the program we were building. Having successes. It felt good but more than that it relaxed me. It took me out of my mom-self and gave me some of my old, cherished but until now underappreciated identity. Because while I knew I liked working, I didn't know I needed it to be ok. To be sane. Is that an overstatement? I don't think it is.

This blog was born during that full-time mothering period of my life and it has suffered since I went back to work. Before it was a challenge to find the time but the words burned their way out of me because they had no where else to go. I mean, I talked to my friends or with groups of women in my yoga studio and I had moments of release but the writing was the result of the constant thinking, thinking, thinking that was going on as I took care of my kids. Strapped them into carseats which is its own marathon activity to the point that I still plan my day and spontaneous stops based on how many times I'm willing to take them out and put them back into the car. It's hard to appreciate the physical and mental toll waged by the maneuvering of semi-compliant limbs of others as you bend and squeeze and turn them into their car seats.

Yesterday as a work day was notable for the fact that two separate colleagues told me without being asked that I am so hard on myself. I didn't feel like I was being hard on myself, though that is the single-most common descriptive comment I hear from others. It gave me pause because I hate hearing it and because when I held it up against myself I didn't feel like it fit. At least not then. Which then made me think harder to try to figure out why my self-awareness can be so off in that particular area. How do I get better at that? Do I try? You see where I'm going with this? This is how I tend to think, no matter what. So with small children and few other outlets or inputs it was a whirling, swirl of a mess.

What does it mean when working is your self-care? Because work is not self-care. It's medicine. Draining, difficult medicine that takes up a lot of time from the things I'd often rather be doing. Things which when I wasn't working I never did. Like cook or garden or write or do yoga. I mean, I don't do any of those things on a day I'm with the kids.

10 of 40

Written sometime last month, posted today

Three things happened yesterday that pushed me into taking a seat today.

My sister is a PR boss and has been for a long time. This post is not about her though I want to mention that I mean she is a BOSS, not just a boss. She rules in her field and out of it. Because of her profession she gets emails/has access to people looking for specific types of stories or certain types of people to interview. She's sent me dozens over the years and I can never get it together to respond in time mostly due to the disconcerting paired habit of perfectionism and procrastination that I have.

Yesterday she sent me one from a writer looking to interview people who have built their brand using blogging and/or social media. I wrote back "Cool! I'll send her something." And then put it away. Then happened to look at it again and noticed that the deadline was in two hours. I almost didn't do it but instead took the time to fire off 300 words trying to fit into the chosen category. It was rough but I was glad I did it anyway. And in the exercise I found a little gem that has been rolling and bonking its way in the rock-polisher of my mind for the past year or month or something. The last two sentences, after scrapping and slicing things in order to get in under the word limit, were:

I have a lot to learn about building my brand logistically but more crucially to me this blog has been helping me build my actual brand in life--as in, finally standing in my own values and saying them out loud. Being me, all the time. 

Oh. Right. Yes, that's it exactly.

I haven't been writing much lately for many reasons, not all of which I will list here. One of the big ones is that I have been deeply affected by my continued education about the racism and sexism in our culture. Pushing myself to find ways to challenge them and break them down. Seeing the ways I contribute to each of those ugly, unacceptable -isms. Making mistakes. Committing microaggressions and getting slightly more aware of them, even as I worry that I'm missing more of them than I'm catching. Noticing the times when I don't speak up. Seeing the ways the tears come, unexpectedly, when I'm talking about the way Hillary Clinton was treated. Trying to figure out how I am going to fight when I don't feel like a fighter, to make time and take risks while also somehow staying safe. I think about all of this a lot. It's affecting my insides--not my sensitive stomach but the fibers of my self. And I've felt scared and vulnerable about writing about it publicly until I got it right. But I won't get it right for a long time. And that is one of the main aspects of my brand--I will keep questioning, keep worrying and wondering, and keep wanting to get things right. Other people are doing some or all of that too. So I'm going to try to write more, risking offending people or pissing people off. Risking boring people--not this again, why doesn't she go back to writing about toddlers drinking bottles? It's just all mashed in together, that's why and I know everyone else is holding similar unmatched but picked-anyways bouquets.

The other thing that happened yesterday is. . . .I have no idea because I wrote this last month and I don't remember what else I was thinking about. So here is yet another fragment to be shared with the internets 

9 of 40

I am not depressed in today's world. I am. . . tired. Bone tired and brain tired. But otherwise ok. Good day with the kiddos yesterday, left the house trashed. Can someone tell me how to have a good day with the kids and not leave the house trashed? Husband shared his ideas with me yesterday as I lay sprawled on the couch, feet in his lap, recovering from a day of parenting. Today is a waiting day. Waiting to help. Waiting to speak Spanish. Waiting to interact. So for now, writing and thinking and reading and watching.

Originally written 12/4, posted now.

The words.will not.come.

My mind is full of thoughts. None of them want to be committed to paper or the online equivalent. I am just dripping with self-consciousness--my skin is crawling with it and it winds itself around every word. Ugh.

There is a possibility I am depressed. Note to readers: I am not about to be hospitalized and there is no need to intervene. At least I don't think so . . .heh.

Reasons for being possibly depressed:

1) The holidays. I hear they get people down. Maybe now they get me down?

2) The sad, horrible, scary, violent bullshit that is in the news almost every day. Bullshit trivializes it but that is the word I am using for now.

3) The comedown from my flying high, "I can do anything!" post-hospital experience

4) Change in diet from super clean, healthy, mostly gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free back to my regular eat anything and everything and don't pay attention to the effects on my body and mind

5) Weight gain (spending many days in the hospital with gastrointestinal issues left me quite svelte there for a while)

6) Lack of yoga and exercise in my life

7) Lack of time to myself

8) Big fight with a main person in my life

9) Stay-at-home parenting is hard

10) House-wifery is not my forte so I am constantly surrounded by evidence of things I am not good at, such as cleaning and clearing the mounds of crap off every available surface in our house

11) Stress from working part-time, mothering almost all the time and trying to find time to do the other stuff that needs to be done

12) Cold and dark time of year

13) My brain chemistry

14) Umm. . .this list seems sufficient

I am not light-hearted or fun these days. I am heavy and blue and want to eat sweet, heavy, comforting foods and drink booze and hide under blankets and wait for the joy to kick in.