Grace inherited a lot of things from me: my cleft chin, my exquisite-to-the-point-of-pain sensitivity, my standard-issue brown eyes, my deep desire to please, and my strong preference to be in control. She also seems to have inherited …
my bladder.
The child pees constantly. All night long and all day long. Crikey. Long road ahead for her, filled with short car rides because the long ones are too painful.
We celebrated Christina’s birthday last night. Started out at a cocktail party (somewhat random, but lovely) at Winston’s and then went to the Met Bar for dinner. The night was entertaining, sweet, and early, three qualities I attribute in spade to my dearest dearest friends. I think the most classic moment was when Elizabeth was talking about going to see Dolly Parton on her 38th birthday. Christina said, phew, at least we have over a year to organize that. And Elizabeth, surprised, said, “well, no, my birthday is in May.” We had to remind Emay that she’s turning 37, not 38. What a happy surprise that was.
I think often of these women, and of the extended family we have created together. Our children are growing up nearly as siblings, and we have shared every step of the parenting journey (so far – and I am looking forward to the miles that lie ahead). I realized how comfortable and intimate our relationship is when I joked to Hilary about stripping her membranes and she reacted with horror. When Christina was almost due with Emma, that was a joke Elizabeth and I made routinely – and probably would have enacted if she wanted us to.
Several years ago I described one of these wonderful women as “the third leg of the stool” – and the name has stuck. See below for a tabblo I made of the stool, exactly a year ago (with goddaughter Emma in utero!).
Despite the hours a week I spend talking to Elizabeth and Christina, I don’t think I say enough how grateful I am for their companionship on this road. How much I appreciate each of their distinctive personalities: Christina’s shoot-first-aim-later, enthusiastic approach to making life’s decisions, both big and small, her Mario Andretti driving in her minivan, and her 7:30am phone calls every morning; Elizabeth’s open-minded embrace of some non-conventional choices that I share, the way her more relaxed employment of schedules and routines shows me the value of cranking back on the intensity now and then, and her endearing sense of both humor and whimsy.
I am blessed to have Elizabeth and Christina’s joyful company, their wisdom and their laughter. As I muddle my way through these early years of motherhood, these confusing midlife years, they are both reality check and inspiration.
8am. The children are still sleeping. I’ve been up since about 6, when I started tossing and turning around and finally got up after 7. This is nature reversed.
It’s also pouring, pouring, pouring, hurricane style rain. Nice mid April!
Another sun-through clouds photo, from this morning by Whit’s school. I read one of my favorite bloggers today writing about the process of her separation. She wrote so achingly beautifully about how wisdom comes at unexpected times, about the strange terrain she was walking. My favorite passage was when she told a story of someone asking her if she still loved her husband and she said of course. She said she did not un-love people. That is not her way. That her life would be easier if she could, in fact, un-love people. I know that feeling. It is not my way either, to un-love people. As I’ve said before, I am an open person and am blessed with many friends, but those who have burrowed all the way into my heart, who are the most deeply loved, are both few and permanent.
The post reminded me of a book I haven’t leafed through in a long time, The Book of Qualities. I’ve long adored this book and am so glad I opened it again this morning. The book is whimsical and wise, small and also enormous. A few of my favorite passages:
Courage
Courage has roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight int he eye. She is not impressed with powertrippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep, and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When she walks, it is clear that she had made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying; they just forgot to mention that she is kind.
Change
Change wears my sister’s moccasins. He stays up late and wakes up early. He likes to come up quietly and kiss me on the back of the neck when I am at my drawing table. He wants to amuse people and it hurts him when they yell at him. He is very musical, but sometimes you must listen for a long time before you hear the pattern in his music.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy builds slow fires, but they burn for a long time. His eyes are the color of the clear summer night. He loves the drum and the flute and the dark winter moon. He knows many things, but he does not talk much. If you try to pin him down, he will answer you with music. You have to decide for yourself what he really means….
Certainty
Sometimes all the Qualities seem to talk at once, and I don’t know who to listen to first. Certainty comes into the room and stands in the doorway and gives me a good long look until I hear the silence again … Certainty knows many alphabets. He is an architect with language. His words build meanings. He loves fine calligraphy and beautiful type. He once told me, “My love affair with language goes down to the letter.”
Panic
Panic has thick curly hair and large frightened eyes. She has worked on too many projects meeting other people’s deadlines. She thinks she has an incurable disease. No one else has been able to confirm or deny it. She wakes up in the middle of the night pulling her hair out. She wants to dig underneath her skin and pull this illness out by its roots. She grabs at her scalp instead. She is crying for help, but only when she is sure no one is around to hear her… Panic is sure no one can help her. She insists that she must sweat out these demons on her own. Although most people care about her, she refuses to see them. She is ignoring the evidence of her own senses.
Inspiration
Inspiration is disturbing. She does not believe in guarantees or insurance or strict schedules. She is not interested in how well you write your grant proposal or what you do for a living or why you are too busy to see her. She will be there when you need her but you have to take it on trust. Surrender. She knows when you need her better than you do.
Honesty
Honesty is the most vulnerable man I have ever met. He is simple and loving. He lives in a small town on a cliff near the beach. I had forgotten how many stars there are in the midnight sky until I spent a week with him at his house by the sea. In my time I have been afraid of many things, most especially of the heights and of the darkness. I know if I had been driving anywhere else, the road would have terrified me. Knowing I was on my way to see him softened the fear. And in his presence the darkness becomes big and deep and comforting. He says if you are totally vulnerable you cannot be hurt.
Wisdom
Wisdom has a quiet mind. She likes to think about the edges where things spill into each other and become their opposites. She knows how to look at things inside and out. Sometimes her eyes go out to the thing she is looking at, and sometimes the thing she is looking at enters through her eyes. Questions of time, depth, and balance interest her. She is not looking for answers.
I listened to the end of Obama’s book today driving home from Providence. He talks eloquently about his wife, Michelle, and about his growing awareness of and sensitivity to the challenges she faced as they had children and she struggled to reconcile what he called two sides of herself. He describes a woman who wanted to provide the traditional home her mother had provided for her, and also a woman who had big dreams about making a professional mark on the world, and how they cohabited in a single body.
I had the same reaction that I do when I read books like Mommy Wars, or articles about this topic: I welled up instantly with tears, the words having touched some reserve of emotion in me as inarticulate as it is endlessly deep. I can’t even explain what the feelings are, I just know that they are raw and powerful. Conflict isn’t the way I’d describe it – Obama says Michelle’s two selves are fighting with each other, and I wouldn’t say that of myself. I am clear on the choices I’ve made and quite convinced that they are the right ones for me and for my children, at least right now. And yet, somehow, there is a profound vein of feeling that is still there, pulsing beneath the surface, but still foreign enough that I can’t put its contents into words.
Which brings me to another topic. I often feel like my emotional sensitivity, the ease with which things both wound and delight me, is a liability in this world. I am often made to feel like these are traits I ought to learn to harness and quiet down. And I do agree that there is value in my being able to control these emotional reactions; it would be a relief to be able to halt the crazy spirals that I sometimes feel powerless against. But during a run this week I was listening to Ben Harper’s Fight Outta You (“don’t let them take the fight out of you”) and it occured to me, in a single swoop of realization, that maybe I ought to start thinking of this part of who I am as a strength. Damn it, I thought, I need to stop letting the world drain my emotional awareness of value; by doing this I’m letting them take away something that is integral to who I am and to how I approach life. When did emotional stoicism become the ideal?
That fighting sense dissipated rapidly, of course, and today once again I feel like I should just grow up already, but it was an interesting reversal to view something I’ve long thought of as a weakness as a potential strength. Now if only I could recapture that!
