oh this is hard

Everything is changing

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Grace at my 15th year business school reunion on Saturday, sitting in my 1st year classroom, in my 1st semester seat. She’s closer to the age I was when I sat there than I am now.

I’ve long been a huge fan of Kyran Pittman‘s writing.  I loved her book, Planting Dandelions: Field Notes From a Semi-Domesticated Life, and I also follow her blog.  A few weeks ago she shared a Humans of New York post on her Facebook feed.  It was a picture of a man with his teenage daughter, and what he said was:

“I’m supportive of anything that keeps her focused and moving forward. All I can do is try to clear away as much bullshit as possible so that she can access her future. The older she gets, the less I can control, and the less I can protect her from. It’s a bit nerve-wracking. I did get her a Swiss Army Knife last week. Because you never know when you’ll need one of those.”

Kyran’s introduction was:

This is as great a teen parenting philosophy as I’ve ever heard. Getting them to adulthood with as many choices intact as possible, and the wherewithal to choose well–that’s what it’s about now for us.

And then she added:

Or as Asha Dornfest so aptly put it, we’re parenting with the end game in mind now. When they’re little the whole object is to keep them safe. And then one day it hits you, that was just a temporary assignment.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these lines. Parenting with the end game in mind now.  Yes.  And the object is still to keep them safe, but the definition of safe has changed entirely.  It doesn’t feel accidental that I have this stop-and-go vertigo right now, that I feel a little unsteady on my feet, that the world feels like it’s whirling around me in a way a little more unnerving than usual.

Everything is changing, and the truth is it’s hard to catch my breath or find my footing.

Grace is sprinting towards 13, and her entire body and self are leaning towards the future in a way that I find both deeply reassuring and frankly terrifying.  She’s a young woman, and suddenly parenting feels different.  Of course I’ll be her mother until the end of time, even when we’re both gone, but the definition of motherhood has changed, and it feels a bit like an ill-fitting garment.  Certain things that I had just gotten used to are gone and others which I somehow thought I had more time to prepare for have arrived.

I’ve always, from my very first days of motherhood, believed that my children do not belong to me.  I’ve written that very sentence point-blank (as an aside, in searching for that link, I discovered that I wrote my daughter, who’s about to graduate from sixth grade, a letter on this blog on her first day of kindergarten – wow).  Grace and Whit are passing through me on their way to the great wide open.  They are not mine; it is my distinct honor and privilege to share these years with them.  But still, the realization that I’m in the second half – probably the final third – of this season jars me.  The losses pile one on top of each other. I’ve said before that while motherhood has contained more surprises than I can count the central one is probably how bittersweet it is.  I ferociously love my children, and the emotion I feel for them is the central guiding tenet of my life.  But even almost 13 years into being a mother, I’m staggered, over and over again by the losses that this ordinary life contains and by how frequently my eyes fill with tears.

My role these days with my tween is about abiding, knowing when to bite my tongue, being patient, and trusting that our bond will survive this passage.  It is making sure she has a soft place to land when she needs it but also gently encouraging her to step outside of that familiar circle to challenge herself.  It’s in that space beyond what is known that growth happens, even though it’s scary.  For us both.

It’s keeping the end game that Kyran and Asha mentioned in mind.  It’s knowing that what I want is an independent, brave, autonomous child.  After all, so many years ago, when I put 5 year old Grace on a plane alone, I said confidently that only a child secure in her attachments can venture away.  I still believe that.  I just didn’t realize how much it would hurt.

 

A weekend with Whit, and vertigo

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Whit turned ten in January, but we finally celebrated his birthday with a party (ish) on Saturday.  His best friend slept over on Friday night and we went indoor skydiving and surfing on Saturday at Sky Venture in Nashua, New Hampshire.  The boys had a blast.  The photos and video I have of Whit’s face in the skydiving chamber are priceless.

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After skydiving they went surfing.  This was really fun too.  I thought about the surfing camp I went to, in 2000, right before graduating from business school.  I found surfing really difficult.  Nevertheless, they were undaunted and unafraid.

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On Sunday, Whit’s baseball team had their first scrimmage.  For the first time in his life, he pitched.  I watched him on the mound and tears pricked at my eyes.  He has a long way to go but I’m proud of him for standing there alone, for trying, for opening himself up to failure like that.  It’s a lot of pressure, pitching.  I have a new respect for everyone who has taken the mound, whether in the World Series playoffs or on a Little League field.

Monday morning I woke up out of breath, the room spinning around me.  This has never happened to me before.  I had felt a bit off for days, truth be told: vaguely dizzy and just plain strange.  The best way I can describe how I felt last week is as though I was floating above myself, but not entirely inside my own body.  Monday I knew why.  I couldn’t stand up without falling over and the room kept spinning.  Thankfully Matt was able to stay home with me Monday and took me to the doctor who did some basic neuro tests and confirmed that this seems to be a garden variety episode of vertigo.

I’m writing on Tuesday morning and I still feel terrible.  Perhaps slightly improved over yesterday (I am sitting at my desk, but my head is hurting and spinning at the same time) but definitely not okay.  I still don’t want to drive.  I really just want to lie down.  There’s a limit to how long I can put my day job on hold.  I’m trying to accept the very loud message from the universe that I don’t control it – or anything.  This is both unpleasant and scary though, if I’m honest.

I keep thinking about Whit leaning forward into a tunnel of air or stepping onto a surfboard or the pitching mound.  I need some of his courage now.

Note: I was not compensated by Sky Venture for this post in any way.  This is just my personal experience.

Questions for Writers

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Kristen’s blog, Little Lodestar, is one of my regular reads.  Last week she asked as series of nine provocative questions that I have not been able to stop thinking about.  I wanted to share them here, along with my answers, and pose them to all of you at the same time.  I’m endlessly fascinated by and hungry for the details of the lives of writers, the sources of their inspiration, and the particular decisions they make on a given day.  I am impressed by Kristen’s deliberate effort to call herself a writer as that is something I struggle with myself.

This blog, and the online world I found through it, has brought me many surprises, but one of my most favorite has been how supportive the blogging community is.  My interest in Kristen’s questions and in your answers is just a further manifestation of that support and community. I found the comments on Kristen’s post engrossing and look forward to learning more here.  Another way this community works is that it was my friend Nina Badzin who originally gave me the idea to share these questions, and my answers, here.  She did the same yesterday and I hope you will click over and read her thoughts on the writing life and on Kristen’s questions.  Nina and Kristen are both writers for whom I have the utmost esteem and affection, and I am grateful every day to have met them in this online world.

Without further ado, I’m happy to share Kristen’s questions and ask any of you who are willing to answer them here in the comments (or on your blog!).

1. Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet? (I share with my husband something that I submit elsewhere only AFTER it’s been published, and I am pretty certain he does not read my blog 90% of the time.)

My husband reads my blog most of the time, though I think the attention that it receives varies depending on the day.  I show him my published pieces too, though don’t know that he’s really focused on most of them.

2. How much of your family and/or closest “friends in real life first” read your stuff…let alone give you feedback about it? (Comments from my family and friends, either online or in person, are overwhelmingly rare. I’m totally fine with that, but I am curious if this is the norm for others.)

Many of my family members and close friends do not read my blog, though some do.  Those who do rarely comment but when people do reach out to me it means a huge amount (enormous thanks to those of you who do this!) My feelings about this topic are complicated. Agree with Nina that it’s a lot to ask that people read.  On the other hand, I’m deeply grateful that some people read.

3. What do you do with the pieces that continually get rejected–post on your blog? Trash? When do you know it’s time to let it go?

Sometimes I post on my blog.  Sometimes I just let them go.  The truth is I don’t submit a whole lot.

4. Are there pieces you write for one very specific place that, once rejected, you just let go of, or do you rework into something else?

The only specific place I really write for is my blog, so I don’t run into that much.  Or, if asked specifically (for someone else’s blog or for a magazine or something).  I have written a complete memoir and half of another one, both of which I let go of.  I wrote about that particular letting-go process a couple of years ago.  That was a big one.

5. What is your main source of reading-based inspiration (especially you essayists)? Blogs? Magazines? Journals? Anthologies? Book of essays by one writer?

Blogs, books, and poetry.  I read several blogs religiously, many more regularly, and I read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  I always have a book on my bedside table and read before bed almost every single night.  Actually I do read every single night, but now and then it’s a magazine instead of my book!

6. What tends to spark ideas more for you: what you see/hear in daily life or what you read?

That’s such a good question.  I would say I draw inspiration from both of those sources; what I see and experience as well as what I read.

7. Who have you read in the past year or two that you feel is completely brilliant but so underappreciated?

Another excellent question.  There are many bloggers writing today whose work I think is as good or better than what I read in more traditional channels; I think many are underappreciated.  I wish more people read poetry, because as a genre I think it’s wildly underappreciated.

8. Without listing anything written by Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, Lee Gutkind, or Natalie Goldberg, what craft books are “must haves”?

Stephen King’s On Writing comes to mind.  I dip into Philip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay from time to time.

I would sincerely love to hear any of your answers to any of these questions.  Thank you Kristen for the inspiration!

 

And still. And yet.

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The truth?  It has been a difficult month.  For a few weeks now I’ve been having that world-is-slightly-off-its-axis feeling more days than not.  A soul-level unease that manifests in clumsiness, over-reactivity, and exhaustion.  Do you know this feeling?  I’ve been dropping eggs and feeling more impatient than usual in various parts of my life, taking things personally (despite my own constant reminders to others and myself that I realize things are almost never about me) and forgetting things, sleeping hard and soundly but never feeling quite rested.

I’ve also been more aware than usual of trust, feeling cautious about where I place it, observing that everywhere I go people seem to be talking about other people.  This makes me more and more uncomfortable, this behavior.  As I’ve acknowledged many times, I’m a porous person, but lately that aspect of my personality is frankly overwhelming, and I can’t get out of my own way.  Every day I am startled by sharp words and sliced by unexpected, jagged emotions.

And still.

And yet.

The parade of glorious sunsets out my window takes my breath away and almost every night my heart lifts as I tuck my children in.  There is so much beauty here, even in a month that has been difficult for reasons I don’t understand.

Is this what happiness is, the awareness of all this grandeur even in the midst of painful hours?  I don’t know.  I told someone recently I’m not sure traditional, unalloyed “happiness” is part of my emotional arsenal.  But this feeling may well be contentment.  And that, I’ll take.

This is relatively new to me, this thrum of peace underneath all of the emotion.  In July I observed in myself a sturdy sense of joy and it’s this that is carrying me now, I think.

Inside me there has been a kind of deep settling and an emotional sigh.  Now, when I glance at all the corners of my life I notice both the piles of dusty regrets and the glittering treasures.

I can’t imagine a better way to live my life.  And for this, I offer the most profound thanksgiving I know how to express.

I say the only prayer I know how to say: thank you.

I posted this last year, on November 27th, and it’s exactly how I have been feeling for the last several days.  Maybe it’s a time-of-year thing.  I sure hope so.  Can’t keep yelling and dropping eggs!

Overwhelming awareness of this life’s sweetness

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Grace and Whit have just finished two remarkably joyful and relaxed weeks with my parents on the coast of Massachusetts.  One day last week, I left Boston early in the morning and went down for the day to work from there so that I could surprise them at camp pickup.  My work phone has been screwed up anyway, and there’s wifi, so, I thought, why not?

It turned out to be a weirdly, unexpectedly difficult day.  I seemed to be clunking through the world, knocking things over literally and figuratively, Whit was entirely unimpressed to see me at camp pickup (“why are you here?  OK, fine, I’m going to bike home, see you there”), they bickered on the tennis court, and it was hot.  I was generally out of sorts.

The three of us did have a lovely dinner on the back porch in the cooling, beautiful evening air, and we walked to the ice cream store and down to the yacht club to look at the harbor.  This has become a tradition that Grace and Whit like as much as I do.  As we strolled home, Grace sighed and told me how much she loved beautiful evenings like this one.  The air felt soft on my arms.  Dad and I had a fascinating conversation about Walt Whitman (whose work I’m ashamed I don’t know well enough; I’ve already ordered Leaves of Grass) and Grace and Whit calmed down and got in their pajamas and Mum came home from her meeting and suddenly, facing my departure, I felt a swell of keen sorrow. I didn’t want to leave.  As it sometimes does, my life crashed over my head and my responsibilities felt heavy.

I tucked Whit in and he rolled onto his side, his eyes gleaming in the dark.  “I love you,” he said, and gave me our secret sign that means I love you.  “I love you too,” I told him as I stood in the door.  “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

I went down to the kitchen to say goodbye to Grace.  With the eerie ability to see into my thoughts that both she and Whit sometimes display, she gave me a hug, and said, “tomorrow, when you’re at your desk, Mum, just remember that I’m cheering you on.”  My head snapped back to look at her.  Only half an hour ago she’d been pouting that I wasn’t spending the night.  When did she grow into this empathetic, mature young woman who knew how to put what I needed first?  My eyes filled with tears and I nodded.

I hugged my parents and Grace walked me out.  She stood barefoot in her pajamas on the sidewalk and watched me get into the car.  I told her I loved her and she gave me our secret sign and then, as I turned the car on, she leaned into the open passenger window.  “Mummy,” she said, her wet hair wavy on either side of her face, “You’re my wonder woman!”

“Oh, Grace,” I said to her, shaking my head.  “I don’t know about that.  You’re my wonder girl, though.”

I was blinking back more tears as I drove away, and as the road turned left the whole expanse of the sunset came into view.  I gasped out loud.  The sky was striated with red, orange, pink, and I pulled into a parking lot to try to take a picture.  I couldn’t get a good angle so I kept driving, but I did take one of the fading light as I got onto the highway (ab0ve).  As it so often does, the sky acted on my spirit in an ineffable, undeniable way, and I felt the aggravation and challenge of the day ebb almost instantly away.  I thought of my parents, who had each been so fully themselves that day, of my children, arguing on the tennis court and yet appreciating the glorious evening and then knowing exactly what I needed at the end of the day, of this place I had so long loved.  I felt deeply rooted in the world, a sensation akin to the sturdy joy I’ve written about before.  My awareness of this life’s sweetness overwhelmed me, so sharp I felt it in my chest.

And watching the sun go down, I drove home.