A Vivid Dream

It's Tuesday March 24, 2020 and we are sheltering in place due to COVID-19 aka the Corona Virus. My kids are with their dad until tomorrow morning when I get them back for five days.

I have been working from home since Friday March 13. My work consists of calling people to check in on them and offer grief support a month after someone they love has died. I also call people at various intervals after the death--around six months and a year after. I am also translating a children's book about donation in Spanish and processing correspondence sent to us as the intermediary between the donor families and the transplant recipients.

I am in my first semester of graduate school, working towards earning my Masters in Social Work from Tulane University online. I am taking three classes which add up to seven credits. My classes are:

Diversity and Social Justice

Social Welfare History and Policy

Theories of Human Behavior, Part 1

We got last week off as the university worked to bring all the rest of the students online during this quarantine.

The kids' school closed after Friday March 13 so they have been doing a variety of learning activities here and with their dad since then. I feel grateful that there are four of them and that they are around the same age. Grateful for them to have the company and interaction; grateful for me because it is easier for me not to feel the need to engage or entertain one child.

I am writing my book. So far this looks like going through my old blog posts, journal entries, emails and voice memos to capture the details that I already have. For the first couple weeks of this year I woke up at 5 am every morning to write for an hour. I stopped doing that when I started school, got a bad cold and started staying up too late. Waking up early in the cold and dark seemed too hard. Since then I have written here and there but nothing consistent.

I am participating in my friend Isabelle's powerful, empowering online women's personal growth experience--Mom-Me Circle. She invited me to be a part of it on November 9, 2019 and I immediately felt a huge resistance come up in me. I am too busy! I do not have a big dream I am working towards! I am starting school! I can not take in any more input. I did not respond.

On December 2, 2019 I wrote her back:

Hello my sweet friend, It occurred to me yesterday that you asked me about this virtual circle and for whatever reason I balked at it the day your offer arrived. Fear of something but I couldn't really explore it at the time. Still haven't! I think the fear of "What specific dream would I even pick and do I have the bandwidth to work on? ack" So i'm circling back. I feel scared of this offer. Overwhelmed. Also, I was thinking of you yesterday with so much love and gratitude and wanted to check in. xoxo

We met for coffee on College Avenue in Berkeley a few days later and shone our friendship lights on one another. We caught up and brainstormed and heart-stormed and soaked up the gratitude of being seen and known and valued. I signed up for her course. We just finished our Week 9 Zoom group call last night. I want everyone I know to take part in it.

It occurs to me that part of me would want to journal daily for hours, just to capture a portion of the thoughts, observations, feelings, reactions, triggers, exchanges and moments that make-up a day. In this moment I want to stop here and do a juicy write-up of everything I am learning in her circle. I also want to write up some of the thoughts that flitted into my brain as I cooked lunch--about my privilege and the gratitude and shame it brings up in me, about how busy and overwhelmed I feel sometimes when I look at all there is to be done around here and how even taking away the kids, their school, my school, my commute, any in-person errands and any in-person communication I still have moments of feeling like there is not enough time and not a clear place to start. This awareness startles me and soothes the part of me that wants to rest almost all of the time.

In Mom-Me Circle we worked towards finding and declaring a Vivid Dream. At the beginning of the year I thought mine was to write this book. Last week, in Week 8 of our circle and Week 1 of our quarantine I felt tears come to my eyes as my Vivid Dream settled over me.

I write this book and while I do it I will fall in love with writing. I will embrace that this love pushes me and stretches me to grow. I will acknowledge that the kind of love I want means showing up consistently and resting regularly. I will fall in love knowing that I am scared of lots of parts of love and when I get scared I throw up all sorts of defense mechanisms to keep me from feeling vulnerable, to keep me safe. In this new kind of love I know to ask for help when I feel that fear come up instead of running away. In this new kind of love I know that running away will still happen sometimes and I will forgive myself for that. In this new kind of love I will look for the small, daily celebrations and acknowledgements that we need and want to hear.

Please tell me more about your Loves and what they look like and feel like.

First Day

We went to Yosemite the weekend before last. It was magical to be with the kids as they explored. They kept turning around to asking, "Can I go here? Can I go over there?" Wild with possibility. I asked my dad to take a picture of my crew up in the tree, me standing below them rocking my new sweatshirt. Can you read it?

Tulane.

I start graduate school today.

Wild with possibility.

Last week I got flooded with overwhelm. I don't remember at what point in the cycle we were in. Had the kids just left me? I think so. Was the house a mess? Almost certainly. I felt broke and tired and alone, head racing racing racing like it does when my sweet, hard-working mind gets the message that things are out of control. How will I do this? I am adding a huge thing and I am not taking anything away. What was I thinking?

I could feel myself gathering the troops of my perseverance, my determination, my push-through-it-ness to make something happen when I've decided I want or need it to happen, consequences be damned. Like sending my four kids to a co-op when they were younger, requiring two mornings a week of volunteering even knowing I would be doing it all alone. Even though I was sick and exhausted. I had decided long ago that a co-op was the best foundation they would have and I resolved to make it happen, even though the circumstances of my life at the time clearly flashed "This is too much!" as neon-brightly into my face as they could. Outta my way, I told those warnings, pushing them aside. This is happening.

I've learned some since then. A new awareness has seeped through me that reminds me I need rest. The old way--the dealing with it, making it work, finding a way to work harder, the digging deeper, doesn't work anymore. My body says no. I am one being with finite resources and I can only do so much. I could feel that as I looked out at the looming horizon, knowing something had to give, that I would need to put something down or let something go in order to be a student again. But what?

Some tears and deep rest curled under blankets in the womb-space corner of my couch, binging Netflix and doing what I could to make my mind take a goddamn break I felt better enough to get up and face the world. Nothing was fixed and I still felt overwhelmed but I wasn't drowning in it anymore.

My mom and I chatted on the phone a day or two later. I called to check in, heart full of tenderness, knowing she hadn't been feeling well for a while. She asked how I was. I launched into story. At some point she made a comment that I interpreted as unsolicited advice and my ten-foot brick walls came up at warp speed, palm out to push it away from me "I know! If I want advice I'll ask for it!", shutting it all down. I was flooded, shoulders up at my shoulders, jaw clenched. We hung up, both upset.

I huffed and puffed through some breaths. Did some rage journaling. Texted with my homegirl in one of the many back and forth notes we send to one another throughout the week. Argh! I'm triggered! Invasion! If I want help I'll ask! Grr.

After all of that and some time passing I felt it move through me. Oh yeah. That's ok. Nothing personal. We're both doing our best. For some reason, long ago, that became a tender spot for me. For some reason, long ago, I taught myself or learned from observation that I immediately feel like someone is questioning my competence, taking away my autonomy, if they try to help me problem-solve a problem I haven't asked for help in solving. If I want help, I'll ask for it!

Somewhere quiet inside I heard a little voice say "But will you?" I turned my back on that little voice. Mostly.

I got back into the swing of things with work and kids and school drop offs and scrounging up dinner to feed us. I felt a little better. Well, I felt a little less obsessed with how freaked out and overwhelmed I was. But I knew nothing had been fixed yet. I did not have a new plan.

As the first week full week of kids back to school and me back to regular, non-holiday time work came to a close I reached out to my friend Tara to check in. She'd been popping up in my heart for a couple days. I knew she was hosting a retreat, her first, and I felt so full of admiration and love for her. We did The Practice leadership training together in 2017-2018, when my life was straight up falling apart and she was building herself back up. I knew how far she had traveled to get to this place. I had known about her upcoming retreat for weeks but was too deep in my darkness, surviving the holiday and wallowing in grief, to be able to imagine doing it.

I sent her a text "I wish I could come be a part of your retreat this weekend. I am so amazed and grateful for you! xoxo" I did not say Help me! I'm struggling! I don't know what to do!

"You too friend! You too!" she replied.

and

"You are welcome to come. Are you busy?"

I felt a mix of light dread come over me, imagining going into a vulnerable place of sharing and being quiet. I also felt a little hand at my hand, gently pushing me, whispering "This will help you. You know it will. What a perfect thing to do just before starting school. Do it."

I was really tempted to let the dread win and stay home.

"Come" she said.

"Wow. I am stunned. Thank you. I'll be there" I replied.

She gifted it to me. Because she loves me and she values having me in a circle and she knows me. I decided not to stay overnight so I could save money on lodging. That felt like a good decision. I felt lighter as the weekend approached, especially as Friday dawned and I could move through the day knowing I wouldn't be coming home to a quiet, kid-free house after work. Sometimes the spectre of that is so heavy. But I had somewhere to be.

I drove through the streets of Danville and then up and up the rising slope of a long, steep hill. It was dark. As I rounded a turn I looked to the left and the bright, glowing beauty of the full Wolf Moon shone so clearly I felt tears spring to my eyes. The moon pulled them out, unbidden. I feel so grateful for tears when they come because it means my heart is soft enough to be open to joy. I knew I was in the right place.

I met the others as they sat down for dinner. We chatted and sat quietly and got to know one another a bit. They finished and we walked across the darkened courtyard, past the fountain, on our way to our special retreat room. We came to a small flight of stairs, five or six steps, and the woman in front of me slowly eased down, cup of hot tea in her hand, favoring the leg she hurt that is slowly healing.

"Here, let me hold that tea for you," I offered.

"I got it," she said.

"No," I said. "I'm taking it."

And then I reached out and took the tea cup right out of her hand. I knew she could manage and I also knew I could manage more easily and let her focus on getting down the stairs safely. Part of me cringed on the inside, feeling appalled. Who was I to take something right out of her hand? But I saw her, working so hard, and I didn't want her to work so hard when I was right there to help her find some ease.

The retreat was wonderful. I will write once more about it soon. To sit in a space set with intention, wreathed in beauty, with other women who chose to show up and make something together that none of us could do on our own. The community. The music. The movement. The art. I felt myself getting filled up.

On the last day, Sunday, we gathered for one more time. Tara gave us each a piece of white paper and a charcoal pencil, asked us to draw a picture of ourselves. When we were done, she asked us to pass our portrait to the woman on the left and invited us to write one word that described the woman whose image we were holding. After we finished, we passed to the left again, so that by the time my picture made it back to me it had five words written on it.

Tara passed out water colors and invited us to look at our pictures, take in the words, and paint the pictures if we wanted to. We all wanted to.

Three of my words were:

Strong
Courageous
Warrior

I felt what those words brought up in me. I painted my picture.

When we finished, Tara invited us to share with the group anything that had come up for us. One woman talked about how much she liked and appreciated her words. We listened. She finished talking.

I sat in the silence, wondering if I would say what I was feeling. Not really wanting to, because my feelings felt. . .bad. I knew the words had been written with admiration. I wanted to be able to receive them in the way they were given. I almost didn't share but because I have sat in many women's circle and deepened my practice with them and trust myself more within a circle of women than I do in most other places, I opened my mouth knowing that the words that were sticking in my throat were meant to be said. Knowing that we don't discover the mystery hidden behind the words that are sometimes hardest to say unless we speak the truth out loud for others to hear.

"I am sick of these words! I feel no connection to them. Everyone tells me these things. I'm strong. Who cares? What good does that do me?"

That sat and listened as I talked.

"These words are so isolating. Someone I love very much told me recently that he looks at my life and he can't comprehend how I do it, how I manage. The cognitive dissonance that requires! I am not different than you. I am not stronger. I am drowning. I am so lonely. I'm sick of everyone admiring me from afar and telling me how brave I am. I need help."

They received me so graciously and with so much tenderness. They reflected me back to myself with kindness and open-hearts. They did not run away. They did not get mad. They did not get offended. "I can see how that would be isolating. Thank you for sharing. That would never have occurred to me."

I turned to the woman with the sore knee and said "I don't know if I owe you an apology."

"For what?" she asked.

"For taking that tea cup right out of your hand! Even after you said no. If someone had done that to me I probably would have gotten pissed."

"I loved that you did that" she said.

"Oh good," I said. "Thanks. I knew you could do it and I saw you working so hard. I wanted to help you not work so hard."

Something settled into place inside me.

Oh.

I felt the shift. I don't want these to be the words people use to describe me anymore. These are old words. They are not serving me anymore. It has felt good to be admired. My ego likes that. I must be doing a good job, I must be doing it right if people think I am inspiring. But my Self is saying loud and clear that it would feel better to have ease. To be supported. To be held. To not have to push so very hard so much of the time. That not asking for help, not letting people help me, in no way serves the soft, real me who sits alone on the couch bearing up under the pressure in the moments where my strength is nowhere to be found.

I start graduate school today. I am working towards a Masters in Social work so that I can be a therapist who helps others build resilience, learn how to take care of themselves, recover from trauma. Ever since deciding to do this I have felt excitement bubbling up inside me. I am thrilled!

And I set a new intention this weekend--I will ask for help twice a week. I will try to pay attention and notice when people offer to help me with something, even the small things like carrying something for me when I feel like I've got it all under control. I will try to say yes.

I ask for your help with this. If you offer to do something for me and I say "No thanks, I'm good!' please remind me gently of my intention.

I need help.

New Shoes

Written last Monday:

Tomorrow is my day off, Tuesday. The one day I don't go into the office these days. It's been a change, getting used to commuting back and forth, seeing my kids less. Last Tuesday after picking them up from their fourth day of school I made the mistake of taking them to the mall to get shoes. I'd been picturing taking them to the Vans store--even though I couldn't afford it with any kind of money other than the pretend kind on my credit card. I imagined they'd love the cool shoes and it would be a fun adventure, yet another way to mark the transition into a new year.

I usually love the start of the school year, have ever since I was a kid. Finding out who my teachers were going to be, feeling myself get geared up to a new level of functioning, getting both excited and nervous about diving back into the bizarre soup of social confusion and thrill, wondering if I would feel like enough. Hmmm. Did I love it? Those words all together paint a different picture. It could be hard and scary at school. A lot of times I felt like I didn't know what other kids were talking about and I learned pretty quickly that to feel safe, to not feel dumb or not enough, I better pretend that I knew what everything meant. Pretending to be cooler than I felt on the inside started young.

The past few weeks I have been stressed. Obsessing actually. That's new awareness for me--that when I feel out of control my mind makes plans, revises them, imagines scripts, revises them, has conversations with itself, tries to look at something from all angles. Spinning, spinning, spinning, trying to soothe myself by naming what is happening, making sure there are no surprises, and finding a way to make it turn out the way I want or need it to.

My ex and I had made an agreement to try a particular after school program for the kids and I did not want to. I knew I did not want to and I agreed to try it anyway, because my values got confused like they sometimes do, and I put getting along and being liked and being a team player above what was best for the kids. I tried to make space for my co-parent because I know that I am not always right and I know that I see things through the lens of what I know or believe to be true. And because it's hard for me to make space for my own self. To allow myself to need something for my kids for my sake too.

As the beginning of the school year got closer, I knew I did not want them to go. I felt it in my bones and throughout my body that I did not want them to go. I tried to talk myself into all the reasons it would be ok. I reached out to trusted friends and heard from them the reasons it would be ok, even if it wasn't ideal. I felt panicky. I knew that feeling panicky did not necessarily mean that the program itself was bad. I was feeling scared and sad and out of control. So knowing it in my bones, that I wanted them home with less structure, more free play, the ability to go find a comfy place to reset or jump on the trampoline or play on the rug with Duplos with no timeline, felt like the one truth. But I know there is never one truth.

My babies going into kindergarten. My kids away from me way more than they're with me. The loss and fear of that. The ache of longing to have more time with them. The belief that what I was asking for was best for them. And also the willingness to fight for myself in the process. To say I need this and I am allowed to need something. I am allowed to keep them close.

Spinning, not sleeping, obsessing. I asked to change the plan. It was difficult and triggering to try to work things out with my co-parent. It affected everything I did. I used every tool I have access to, trying to take care of myself.

Getting divorced was so much more painful and humbling than I expected. So many people get divorced. This happens. They keep going to work and seeing friends and functioning. I didn't expect it to gut me daily. I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to get myself together and keep all the rage and grief and loneliness from spilling over onto my kids. I didn't anticipate how hard and confusing it would be to try to show up as myself, my real self, with these growing young people when my real self was scary and hurt and mad. I didn't anticipate how much strength of will and willingness to reach out and near constant self-regulation it would take in order to be a grown-up when I needed to be the grown-up.

Last Tuesday I picked the kids up and took them to the mall, with all of this back up in my face, swirling around inside me, attempting to shove the feelings down into whatever secret hidden hole unacceptable, uncomfortable, difficult feelings go into when they're not wanted.  The kids were jumping out of their skins. I forget that transitions are still in full effect on day four. I forged ahead. We got to the mall with excitement. Ice cream and the park were promised for after. Together the five of us skipped and ran inside.

It was not fun. No shoes were purchased. They were goofy. There are four of them. It's not a playground. One kid out of four had found satisfactory shoes that fit. I wanted to leave. The kids were wrestling and using loud voices. One of them noticed that the lady at the front of the line in a wheelchair only had one leg and came to tell me about it, loud voiced and full of curiosity and wonder. The young man next to me kept looking at me. If I were a cartoon there would have been steam coming out of my ears.

I hit my breaking point. I can't say what pushed me over the edge but I snapped. Slammed the shoes down. "I'm done. We're going. No ice cream. Let's go"

The shock spread. Tears and disbelief and hurt feelings and disappointment. They trotted after me on their long short legs as I strode with purpose and desperation out of the store, turning around to herd them safely into the van. I felt wretched. They were miserable, promising to be good, so hurt and scared, still asking to make sure they were clearly understanding that there would be no ice cream, the one child who had actually fallen for shoes and was now not getting them broken-hearted. I feel so sad even recounting this story.

We sat at a red light and I started crying. "Are you crying?" one of them asked. "Yeah." And that made them cry even more.

We all cried together in the messy minivan on the way home. I seethed, all walls up trying to hold it together, finding no gentleness for anyone anywhere in me. Help me, help me, help me. This is not what I wanted for today. I feel trapped by myself. By my hardness. By my powerlessness. By everything. I'm only with them for another hour. This is my one spacious day in the whole week to be with them and it's wrecked. What a dumb decision to do this. Help me. My shoulders were hunched up to my ears and I could feel the muscles that have been clenched and spasmed for weeks settling into their twisted up places because there was no where else for them to go.

Lots and lots and lots of deep breaths. Apologizing to them. Taking the blame onto myself, saying I asked too much of them and of myself and that I was sorry.

Transitions are hard for me. Really hard. This has been true for most of my life, as narrated to me by my mother and felt by me with growing layers of awareness as I grow in wisdom and self-knowledge. I know how to take care of myself better, how to make space for the mystery that is packaged within the change. How to notice when I'm gutting it out, pushing through to get to the other side, clenching my fists and the muscles in my face to just be done. And it still surprises me that a transition takes so long. It's not just the day itself--back to school day. It's not just the couple days before and the couple days after. It's a process, a settling in, a shaking off, a whole body, whole spirit experience. And being in relationship with other humans adds seventeen other layers of ACK and WTF and BE QUIET and TOO MUCH and HOLD ME. So many chances to be let down or to let someone else down as we're doing our best to ride the waves.

Be gentle with yourselves. Humaning takes a lot of energy.

Oh and this past Sunday with an unexpected four hours off I went to Nordstrom Rack to buy myself a new suit as I prepared for an interview. While there I picked out and purchased four perfect, comfortable, well-made on sale pairs of sneakers for my kiddos. With joy and gratitude to be alone while being with them in my heart.

Enough

Oh hello. I've missed you. I've spent much of the last year living and feeling, exploring and hiding from, talking about and thinking about what has been going on rather than writing about it. I've been journaling more, finally turning to a typed journal rather than another handwritten one because in typing my fingers cover more ground. There is so much to take in. So much to take in and so much to share.

I stood in a new-to-me bookstore yesterday, touching the pretty books, taking pictures of some I want to buy but didn't let myself because my shelves are already heavy and because much of my self-care has looked like spending money lately. I felt some anger and fear come up as I read the sleeves of memoirs. Oh no. I better hurry up. Who is going to want to read my book when there are all these other good life stories being published already?

Hello, scarcity. I welcome you so I can send you on your way. There is time. It will happen. I will make it happen.

I read so many words written by women and they are so bad-ass and wonderful it's like drinking from a life-source that will never run out. More and more and thank you and where have you been and yes. In this article about Stacy Abrams I read in a months-old issue of New York What's Next for Stacy Abrams? she talks about creating a spreadsheet in which she wrote down her goals and what it was like to admit to wanting. To be a woman and to want and to claim that wanting and how that in itself is revolutionary. To read an article about a smart, powerful, curious, multi-dimensional woman written by another brilliant, observant, powerful woman. . . yes yes yes and yes. There is no scarcity here. There is more and more pouring out and I want to drink it all in.

More soon. I want to write about my 20th college reunion and what it was like to sit with my girls and talk and love and celebrate. I want to write about taking the kids camping. I want to write about buying this house and what that's been like. I want to write about leading my first yoga circle with The Practice and getting close to finishing my certification so I can lead more. I want to write about health and body awareness. I want to write about leaving room for the mystery. About feeling love. About unlearning.There is enough. There is so much.

42

I am going to write a book. It will be the story of the last five years and for it I will take this blog and fill in the holes, draw in the landscape. I don't know how long it will take but I am going to do it. Today on my 42nd birthday I set this intention here.

Two months ago if you had asked me when I started writing this blog I would not have been able to tell you. I knew it started in my motherhood but I couldn't remember specifically when. That is how I feel about most things lately. Did that happen a year ago? A month?  Four years? I have to sit down and sift through memories, finding lamp posts of certainty--these kids were born in this year so that means this other thing happened after that year so that means. . .it's a funny reconstruction. Cleo laughed with me yesterday morning as I turned back and forth from kitchen sink to kitchen table saying out loud "You're so funny Mommy. You don't remember anything."

That's right I said, in between pouring a glass of orange juice and then a glass of ice water and then making a waffle and then pouring a different glass of orange juice.

"What am I doing?" I ask myself aloud many times a day.

I started this blog in April five years ago. I was hugely pregnant with Cleo and Daphne. Lily and Cyrus were ten months old. I'd just met and hired Stephanie, the woman who was immediately to begin saving my life. Because of her I had a little space in my day, in my mind. I had time. I was desperately afraid and nuts because of all the babies and the exhaustion and the back-to-back pregnancies and the identity changing and the self-doubt and my life-long Observer self, trying to take in all of the life that was crashing down around me and through me. At the time I didn't know how else to keep myself in the world, alive, so I poured words out onto a page in a torrent, an exorcism, a plea, to have people see me and tell me I would be okay and to get the teeth-humming madness out of my body. Writing was survival. Raw and scary and desperate and necessary.

Last year I hardly wrote here at all. I was changing and healing and noticing and for the first time in my life had the tools and the community and the wisdom and the loving arms to hold me and keep me safe as I started letting myself feel all the feelings. Feel the pain. Feel the fear. Feel the love. Be in it as it happened. Not write about it but feel it and take care of myself through the feelings. Feel it in my body, not just observe it with my mind. I got to do that for so many reasons, not the least of which is having a doctor who also is a mother of many, who had been treating me for over a decade and finally sat me down and said "You can not survive like this." She gave me the space and the freedom and the support to treat myself more gently. I got to do it because I had found a yoga community of women who were interested in and committed to showing up, listening to our sacred intuitive voices and letting our bodies guide us. And a teacher who showed us how. I got to do it because I had found a recovery community, roomfuls of people who have years of coping mechanisms that no longer serve us. Years of coping because we needed habits and skills to feel safe when we knew we weren't. Tools and books and understanding and hope and serenity because we found our way to one another and saw with gratitude and fear and trembling what healing could mean. I got to do it because when I finally started being brave enough to really show up as my whole, real self I found that I was somehow surrounded by the sweetest love I had ever felt--from all sorts of people. Somehow they knew me and loved me anyway. And I got to do it because of these four children who came into the world and broke up into pieces and who keep holding up a mirror for me even as they forge their own paths.

All of this was happening and is still happening and it has changed my relationship with writing. It has changed and is changing my relationship with my mind. With Knowing. With Figuring Things Out. It is changing my relationship with myself and even as the unwritten words call me to because I know and they know that there are other people who want to hear these stories, when I check in with myself to hear what I need and what I want my Self says "Not yet". I want to share them because I know that is what I'm here to do--take this funny, wild, difficult, unusual life and this mind that watches myself and the world like a movie and these words that make a connection between what I see and what other people are wondering about and spins them into thread that other people can sometimes grab onto. But not yet. Because the healing and the unlearning and the feeling have had to be first.

When I was in high school, maybe even as young as middle school, I remember adults or magazines giving me the absolutely useless and infuriating advice to "Just be yourself" And I felt rage and hopelessness as I inwardly screamed "What the fuck does that mean??? I need more help than that!"

When I was a young adult I remember hearing other older adults telling me "Your 40's are great! You finally really know who you are!" and thinking "Ugh! I will be so old in my 40's. I hope I figure things out way before then when I'm still young enough to enjoy it."

Imagine my surprise to be learning that my Self has been here all along. That She is here and has been here and will be here no matter how many birthdays I have. Happy Birth Day to me.

A snippet

It's been challenging for me to write lately, for lots of reasons. Here is an unfinished piece, a snippet, written almost two months ago.


This morning I woke up alone except for the dog and the cats. It was really cold in the house. I lay in bed quietly, trying to remember what day it was and what was happening.

January 2, 2019. First day back to work in an office after a fifteen month break. Wednesday. Kids coming back from their dad's. Almost the end of winter break so still no school.

I went into the kitchen, opening the cabinets to find the coffee grinder. It wasn't there. Did he take it when he moved out? I hadn't noticed. It's been a while since I've bought whole bean and he moved out in October. I debated driving to Peets to get a pound of coffee, or at least a cup, but I knew the kids would be getting dropped off soon and I didn't want to rush. Tea, then. Hot, milky, sugary tea like my English friend Jemima made for me in Madrid twenty years ago. I held the mug in my hands and sat at the kitchen table. I opened up my laptop and tried logging into Outlook--password remembered, 5400+ emails.

My dad arrived, arms full of gallons of milk in what has become his Wednesday morning ritual, steady even as routines change around him. I let him in and we sat quietly together. I made him tea just like mine.

The kids arrived, full of smiles, Cleo dressed for summer because she never gets cold. My ex-husband and I greeted each other in the kitchen, rolled eyes together at the confusion of going back to work on a Wednesday--him after being off for a week, me after being off more than a year. I told him how many emails were in my inbox and I thought of the other times I've gone back to this workplace in the time he and I have known each other. Once after my two week trip to El Salvador. Another time after our month long wedding and honeymoon break. I was in management then so there were a lot more emails. Once after my first six month long maternity leave. Once after being laid off and then a year of working elsewhere. Once after a three month long medical leave of absence. This time after the longest leave, the longest break from paid work I've ever had since being a working person.

He left, the kids settled in with their part-time toys in their part-time house. I got in the shower. The water was hot. I thought ahead to my haircut next week as I rubbed too much shampoo into my too long but still very short hair. Six months ago I shaved my head. Six weeks after that I shaved it again, marveling at how brave and how vulnerable I felt out in the world--forty one, almost divorced, no hair. Who was I? Could I still be pretty? Would anyone ever want me again? What if for the first time in my life this is the start of not defining myself by whether anyone else wants me or not. People asked me if I was scared when I had it buzzed off and I said no, shaving my head was the least scary thing going on at the time. We were going through mediation, talking money and custody and endings. I was trying to even imagine living half my life without these kids near by. Shaving my head brought my insides more in line with my outsides. It felt raw, wild, wounded, bare. Powerful, defiant, bold, free.

This morning running fingers through sudsy, inch-long, shaggy hair growth helped bring me into the moment. A physical marker of time passed. Of easy, awkward, change.

Happy 40th Birthday Martha

I don't remember not knowing my sister Martha because she was born a week before I turned two. If you look back at photos of our early years you see two very similar-looking girls with bowl haircuts wearing some funky outfits in 70's colors that would have matched better had we swapped pants or shirts. Knowing what we now know about my sister's fashion sense I'm amazed she let either of us out of the house back then without doing some re-arranging. I have questions about this.

My sister is brilliant. Her mind works so fast that she often skips multiple words in the middle of her sentences as she strings her thoughts together, gesticulating her elegant hands in the air and looking at you with bright eyes and raised eyebrows, waiting for confirmation that you were flying alongside of her.

In nursery school we played a game where the girls would take turns lying on a mattress pretending to be sleeping princesses and the boys would take turns trying to wake us up. Writing this now this game seems very strange and weirdly gendered in a gross way but I think at the time it was fun. One day I was winning the game by not showing signs of being awakened so a boy got frustrated and bit my calf. That woke me up. My sister responded by punching him in the nose. She was three.

My sister was an artist from the beginning, not just with her clothes but with any medium she could get her hands on. My dad still has a framed piece of art she drew in nursery school hanging on his wall. She took an art class with high school students at a museum when she was in elementary school. I was jealous but also filled with admiration for what she could do.

My sister has always been surrounded by friends and they have always seemed to be doing fun things and holding each other up and loving each other. This was true in elementary school, again in middle school with some slight variations, again in high school with a totally new group and then again in college even though she thought she could never and would never possibly meet friends as close as those she already had. I've watched these girls and women laugh and love and celebrate my sister and each other over and over again as I've watched her grow up. My sister is a bright light and the kind of friend that people find and hold on to with both hands and full hearts because if you are lucky enough to be loved by this woman you know you would be a fool to let her go.

My sister walks tall, fierce, bold with long hair streaming down her back or tied up in a bun. Her strides are long, her eyes are sharp, her mind is matchless. I can guarantee that many people who have crossed her path have been intimidated for one reason or another, unable to imagine the soft, tender heart and the artist's soul housed within.

My sister graduated with honors from an Ivy-league university and wrote a thesis on beauty pageants for her degree in cultural anthropology, rocking baggy sweats and headphones as she researched and wrote page after page and then went to party like a college student to bring all the pieces of herself back together.

My sister threw herself in the air and onto the ground thousands of times over the her decades' long soccer career as a goalie.

My sister worked in a flower shop after she graduated when there weren't many jobs to be had (it was 2001). Then she worked in PR which stands for public relations which is the business of getting products in the news which is an art I knew nothing about until she started doing it and teaching me. She is known and sought after and beloved in her field. She has elevated companies into international awareness because of how she thinks and what she says and how she understands people.

My sister ran the adult kickball league in San Francisco as a young adult without a car and somehow managed to get equipment and people to where they needed to be, including herself to Las Vegas for kickball championships which I bet you didn't know were even a thing.

My sister and I have lived together as roommates and upstairs/downstairs from each other as neighbors as adults in two different apartments in San Francisco. We loved it and were always perplexed and sorry for the many people who responded with shock saying "I could NEVER live with my sister."

My sister and I got engaged within months of one another and carried our babies at the same time, both times. Together we birthed six children in 2013 and 2014.

My sister is the fiercest protector I have ever had and could ever hope to have. When I was in the hospital waiting for my liver transplant she, among other things, crawled under a sterile paper blanket to hold it up off of my face while doctors inserted a central line into my neck because I was scared and claustrophobic and the doctors wouldn't listen to me so she took matters into her own hands. She also walked in the room after flying home across the country during finals her senior year, took one look at me and said "Can't you at least wash her hair?" leading to the most glorious hot water/hair washing experience of my life, still unmatched as of this writing.

My sister has given me 80% of the clothes and shoes I wear and anytime I get complimented on anything I'm wearing I almost always respond with "Thanks, my sister gave it to me." People then invariably say "You're so lucky! I wish she were my sister." to which I respond "You have no idea."

My sister is the most loving aunt I have ever met. My son told me once how much he loves her and how well they get along and said it was because "we're like two eggs in a pan." She shines love and delight upon my children unabashedly and unreservedly and they bask in it. Wait until she sees the bag of funny, random goodies my daughters put together for her birthday.

My sister is a loving, fun, natural mama and anytime I hear a random video of her interacting with her young sons I marvel at the sweetness of her voice.

My sister, in addition to starting her own PR company, raising two young children and two older children alongside her husband, co-oping at her boys' nursery school, creating and running one of the most successful and joyous fundraisers in the school's history, showing her friends and her family how much she loves us and thinks of us, sponsoring scholarships and speakers at women's financial conferences, and doing other daily, regular life stuff also helps run the San Francisco Women's March as a volunteer. She is badass and big-hearted and I don't know how she does it.

She is generous. She is kind. She is funny. She is quirky. She gifts me with her love over and over again even when I have nothing to give in return. She is the reason I am so grateful to have given my own children so many sisters.

Happy birthday Fanny. I don't have the words to do you justice.