Month: December 2009

February 2009

I wrote Whit his birthday letter (belated, I’m sorry, my dear second child!)  In it, I note his generally sunny disposition, intense preference for 3D activities over 2D ones, his fascination with how things work, his continued lack of automatic belief in the word of authority, and his developing sense of humor.

I read Between Here and April, and Twilight

Whit’s sartorial sensibilities began really flourishing

Visited the Peabody Essex Museum and loved it.

I rediscovered the way that puzzles delight and relax me and completed a couple of 500 piecers before moving on to a 1000 piece one.

Marisa Tomei’s white knife-pleated Versace dress was my pick of the Oscar red carpet.

Grace’s class celebrated the 100th day of school by making collages of 100 small items (swedish fish, jelly beans, paperclips). Her suggestion was to bring in “wine tops” – I felt this was a blatant flaunting of my wino status and demurred.

January 2009


Lots of outside skating because the weather is cold. Lots of pink cheeks and runny noises clomping into the clubhouse on their skates in search of chocolate chip cookies.

Whit is the star of the week and I am irrationally proud that I was able to download the LEGO font and use it for his name on the poster.

One Saturday Grace, Whit and I bundle into full snow gear for an outing on the T. We ride to the Common, play on the snowy and tongue-stickingly cold metal climbing structure until we are too frozen. Then we go to Starbucks for hot chocolate. Somehow seeing Grace walking down the street holding her own Starbucks really gets to me.

Whit’s 4th birthday party – a way to combine a robot obsession with freezing cold weather – aha! Robot bowling. All the children received tee shirts with an (adorable) orange robot printed on the front

Grace’s dream for MLK day: That everyone has food

Celebrate Whit’s 4th birthday by watching the Inauguration on TV with my Dad and my children. I cried when they played Simple Gifts, remembering as I always do, my dear grandmother Priscilla who loved it.

I write a letter of apology to Grace and Whit after suffering from my first migraine and losing an entire weekend. I didn’t want them to have to see me in pain, didn’t want to seem weak or to have them doubt my health and continuing presence.

The video of Rosa Sat was widely circulated, and made me cry every single time I heard it.

Visit to the ER to have Grace’s face glued shut where Whit broke the skin by throwing a robot at her.

Best of 2009: Real Beauty

Today: What advertisement made you think this year?

I know it’s not new this year, but I continue to be awed and moved by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. The top video is the one I know best, and every time I see it I find myself almost breathless with a combination of anger and panic. I feel angry and also sad about all of the hours and energy that I and many wonderful women I know have wasted worrying about what we look like and whether we fit into the impossible mold that society presents us. I feel panicked about how to arm my seven year old daughter to go out into this world’s relentless onslaught, how best to shore up her own self-esteem so that she is rocked as little as possible by these influences.

I think it is tremendously brave of a big beauty company to advertise in this way. With the caveat that I don’t really know very much about Dove (though their parent, Unilever, was many years ago a client of mine) my impression is that this is precisely the combination of doing good and doing well that I more passionately wish more of the business world would aim for. This company seems to be using their brand and their clout to speak out against the norm, to stand in the torrent and face the other way. I admire this tremendously.

Dove makes a powerful statement by showing women, young and old – though I imagine it is with the young that this may have the most germane impact – images of beauty in which they can see themselves. They throw open the definition of beauty and challenge the viewer to think more expansively about what it means. They seek to illuminate the societal cues about attractiveness that many of us have internalized for what they are: merely a single, narrow view on what is really a much more polymorphous and complex issue. Bravo, Dove.

Fear of flying

I feel sad this morning, heavy, full of ambivalence and more aware than usual of the turning forward of time. We stand on the fulcrum of a new decade, and I feel both scared of the uncertainty beyond January 1 and rueful about all I did not accomplish in this last year.

Today, right now, feels suffused with uncertainty. My vision into this next decade is even cloudier than usual. This was made concrete yesterday when I drove in the rain and realized my defrost was broken: I could not see and found myself navigating by dead reckoning. I got there, but my heart was racing in my chest as I did.

I know I am poised at an inflection point. Intellectually I recognize the tremendous opportunity this could represent, but my emotional response of fear and hanging onto what is known is at least as powerful. My head’s logical words are drowned out by my heart’s searing howl. I sense the familiar fear of what lies ahead battling with my deep desire to be braver and bolder. My frequent tears are the only tangible evidence of this war that is going on silently inside my chest.

On December 1st, Kelly wrote about the achingly full moon, pregnant with possibility, and about her own fears of uncertainty. She wrote a line I haven’t been able to forget:

I am more intimate with no than I am with maybe.

Oh, yes. How true this is. Ambiguity terrifies me, make me feel unstable and out of control (correlated personality trait: I hate roller coasters and will not go on them. Also: I won’t eat foods whose uncertainty scares me – oysters are a prime example). Feeling my feet off of the ground? No thanks. This makes me wonder: what would it take for me to feel safe enough to take those risks?

Maybe 2010 needs to be the year that I close my eyes and trust my instinct to get me there (where is there? my map is doesn’t apply anymore. conversation for another post). That I let my feet leave the ground. There is no other way to fly.