Breakfast at almost lunch

We're slow starters around here--rise when we want to, on most days, and fall when we fall.

This morning I made a yummy breakfast-at-almost-lunch. We had scrambled eggs with feta cheese, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella and red onions and free-range, antibiotic free chicken sausage. Well, my son and I had that. My daughter had a leftover warm pasta salad with feta, tomatoes, black olives and spinach. We all had coffee.

Lovely start to a lovely day...I love this life of mine.

Living My Life Like it's Golden

I am so full tonight, so content. Life is going my way lately and the results are beautiful.

I had dinner tonight with a dear friend. Her kids hung with us for the afternoon and she joined later. We had risotto, chocolate chip cookies and coffee. It was so cool, so sublime.

I used to have nights like this, years ago, with another dear friend of mine and it wasn't until I was living the moment tonight that I realized how much I had missed this sort of female connection. The talking, the laughing, the sharing.

I was blissed out.

Having such a full life, as I feel I do right now, means I'm a better person, a better mom, a better partner, a better friend, because then I'm operating from a state of balance, a state of peace and fulfillment.

So much has changed in the years since my divorce--it's like, there's my life pre-divorce and post-divorce now. The divorce is the center mark in my timeline. During that time, I emptied myself--I fell to pieces and in the rebuilding, I kept what worked and I discarded the rest. I reordered and came further into my being.

It was a blessing. I hate that the children have lost their father but that was his choice--I didn't cause it. We lost our marriage, it didn't have to mean his place in their lives.

One day, I'll explore it all here but not tonight. There are dark twists and turns that I'm not sure I'm prepared to explore right now. Soon. Life is good right now. That is the 'it' of it all.

Couldn't sleep...and other matters of anxiety

Fretting over what to prepare for a picnic between a play at the downtown theater and an afternoon at the community art center, when there is minimal picnic-type food in the house.

Good payday coming this week--LONG overdue bonus. But it's not here yet.

Saw my dear friend today, the one from my other life--6 years ago. It's odd to have your life abbreviated into a 45 minute conversation--perspective. I'm sure there are more conversations to come where we relive what we've done, where we've been and what we've gone through. I regret that we didn't live it together but regret is counterproductive because we're here now.

Gave my daughter a half-ass goodnight hug/kiss session because I felt her attitude rising (long story and irrelevant). Wish now I would've called her back to me--if I've learned anything today, it's to NOT leave things undone. Perspective.

My pager sits beside me tonight like a grenade with the pin pulled--will it go off?

I'm tired of the cat climbing over my face to get to the one she loves best on the other side of the bed.

So unprepared for camping this weekend--can't do anything about it until payday.

I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO need a haircut.

Hmmm. Perspective?

I will let them see me

I have had an epiphany of sorts since my last column--the one where I recorded an instance of losing my shit over a Styrofoam vegetable tray.

I am the best damn' example of a human being. I'm good material. I am open, honest, raw, exposed--I don't build walls, don't know how. I don't create facades--I've worked too hard to be me.

I have moments, instances, where the context of my young life determines how I will react. Those pesky little neuron pathways have yet to be rerouted, completely. But more often than not, I'm deciding the next mom move. More often than not, I'm acting within and because of my love for my children and my desire to rock motherhood.

A wise friend of mine shared something with me under the last full moon. She said at least you can go back. At first, I was thinking, did she just hear what I read to her? Go back? How so--cuz if you've got some sort of mothering time machine... And then, as if in response to my inner-sarcasm she finished with, "you can catch yourself and admit that the way you responded is not how you want to continue--it's not how you meant to act, not what you meant to say."

Something about that made sense to me. I couldn't very well always stop the trains but perhaps I could jump from them for my children.

I could let them see me, see the struggle that is me, the struggles that are my insides.

The Tao of Parenting--yeah that's great for sealing failure and breeding inadequacy, sometimes. Where's the Tao for mama standing with her insides exposed or the Tao for mama with foot in mouth? The Tao is full of many contrasting verses but you never hear 'if you want your children to be calm show them how to be a raging lunatic.'

So here is my Tao, if you ever in a million years want your children to have a strong sense of self and place, show them your struggle and your path so they don't think for one second that living is easy.

I said in my last column, I've been better but I've been worse. I want to edit that statement. I've been worse than I ever planned on being but I've also been better than I've ever known. I have a way of focusing on what I don't do as their mom, on what I don't provide, on how I fuck up. What I lack in forethought and patience, I make up for in honesty, humility and humanness.

And, I can go back says my friend under the full moon. I can let them see me. The view's not so bad.

Parenting Tao

[Taken from The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin]

Your Greatest Legacy

If you want your children to succeed,
show them how to fail.
If you want them to be happy,
show them how to be sad.
If you want them to be healthy,
show them how to be sick.
If you want them to have much,
show them how to enjoy little.
Parents who hide failure, deny loss,
and berate themselves for weakness,
have nothing to teach their children.
But parents who reveal themselves,
in all of their humanness,
become heroes.
For children look to these parents
and learn to love themselves.
========================================

Ahhh. I needed that. For all the love I have in my heart for my children and for all of my intentions of peace and bliss, I step outside the mother I want to be from time to time and when I admit my failure, express my sorrow and convey my love, they see the humanness in me. Perhaps that exposure softens the edges when I veer from my path.

Bread-Making Day

Waiting on the kiddos to wake up--it's 11:00 in the morning. Gotta love homeschooling!

We are making bread today. They're making monkey bread, a fun bread composed of ping-pong size bits of the rolled dough w/a raisin inside each bit and a yummy buttery, sweet glaze. I'm making my sunflower wheat bread--a new recipe I tried as my third yeast bread ever and from which I will probably never stray. I just like when bread goes my way.

Here's to rising dogh.

Ghosts

I was confronted with a ghost from my past--just when I was thinking about her. Isn't that how it happens anyway? I was in the grocery store and I thought I saw her. When I looked to see that it wasn't her after all, I wondered what I would do if I did see her. Would I just walk away in disgust? Would I glare? Would I pretend I didn't see her? Would I hold back from hugging her? Would I laugh nervously? Would I be able to speak at all?

So many questions. How have you been? How's your daughter? Your husband? Your mom, dad? What are your dreams now? How close are you to them? Do you remember when...

She was my heart at one time. The only dearness I had ever found in female companionship back then.

It's no secret, I went through some serious shit when my marriage fell apart. Times like that, you fall apart and piece yourself back together in various ways, finding a good fit. There were nights when I thought I was going to die--the pain in my chest was crushing. How was I going to raise my children alone? How would I financially support my family? How would I keep our house? It was terrifying.

She was there--frightened as she was entering motherhood, she was there. I knew she was scared of being a mother--who the hell isn't? It's not all kisses and snuggles when you're sleep deprived and your boobs ache from nursing and your identity is compromised by the new arrival. But she was there and I knew she loved me.

We were really close, almost too close, and because of that, we were probably the greatest weapons against each other. Unfortunately, we found out. We parted ways for a bit--it was crushing for me.

After 9/11, she called me--wanted to make peace because who wasn't scared and confused in that wake? So we did and continued where we left off, pacing ourselves this time. Tempering our relationship--it's like we both knew.

Then, I don't know what happened--nothing, anything, everything. Harsh words in an email and it was over.

I was left stunned and hurt--paralyzed for a bit toward friendship.

I have thought of her often--probably a few times a week. I have even thought that if we just had one more chance, we could do this thing. We are both strong women and we are both open to our own change, we just haven't always been open to each other's change.

We were each shaped by each other somewhere along the way and we were each hurt by each other somewhere along the way. It's been long enough and I think I'm ready to find out what I'd do if I saw her.

But the universe gave me a buffer and my family saw her first.

The *edit* of "The Styrofoam Vegetable Tray"

I have edited this submission following a review from the editor of the community column where I submit once a month (though I committed to weekly submissions).

She, rightfully, offered that the language, ie. f-bombs, at times, deteriorated the shock value--the necessary rawness that captured my downward spiral.

Thanks editor lady. I couldn't agree more.

BTW, thank you too for offering this:

"I LOVE this submission! Probably because I LIVED this submission in my own childhood. I think a lot of people will relate and I think it took a lot of guts to share!"

I felt a bit inadequate when I read this, like, someone else has survived a mom like me and now I write from the other side of that darkness to which she relates. Hmmmm.

Not sure how I feel about that--ah well. I own my demons, I suppose.

Yoga Bliss

Between the sweet release of all negative energy from my body and the sharing of words during a writer's circle under an eclipsing moon, I am in bliss.

Good night.

Here's to looking forward and wanting better.

The Styrofoam Vegetable Tray

This is probably one of the most honestly written pieces of my life, and I have had to write in stages in order to stay firm in my honesty and not sugarcoat or humor through the story I'm forcing my hand to tell. I refuse to let myself off the hook on this one. I will not cower behind self-created subterfuge.

It all began with a black Styrofoam vegetable tray. It probably came into our home under spears of asparagus or summer squash. I collect them afterwards to be paint trays for my kids; it's my way of dealing with having Styrofoam forced upon me. I like to find some other life for it between original intent and final destination (landfill).

Before yesterday, it was a rather innocuous item, this Styrofoam tray, unnoticed in my daily life, unconsidered and relatively unimportant.

Yesterday, however, it became a pretense for my rage, a symbol for the beast that lurks in my motherhood, a reminder that I lost my shit.

As I write this, I can feel the sick churning in my gut – the feeling of guilt, remorse, of wanting to undo what cannot possibly be undone. Not only can yesterday NOT be undone, it will live on in how my daughter looks at me, what she thinks of me and how she recalls me from yesterday on.

She was painting a box in the den to use in her science experiment for viewing the phases of the moon. I was in the kitchen preparing lunch, and it is apparent to me now that I was under duress – why the hell I can't see this shit coming all these years later is beyond me, but there it came nonetheless.

I walked into the den, saw her work space and asked what the hell she thought she was doing – why hadn't she asked to use the vegetable tray she was using as her paint palette? She instantly lowered her head; her face morphed into shame. You know, I can't remember the birth weight of either of my children or their height in inches for that matter, but I'll never forget that look on her face.

I digress.

See, my daughter and I have battles over her asking to use items in the craft room – it’s a consistent struggle between two strong personalities and my asinine need to have order, to know what I have and to know how much, of nothing that matters at all really. As I write this and read my own words, I can hear my mother screaming, irrational with rage, over "her face mask," "her shampoo," "her hairbrush," blah, freakin’, blah. I can recall lowering my own head, masked in shame, feeling so deeply inadequate. Not understanding. Not getting it. Not realizing that there was nothing to get – that’s blind rage, man. My own seed of rage was incubating in all of those senseless moments strung together by her remorse and my forgiveness.

So I kept yelling at my own daughter, irrationally – the exact words I used are beyond me now or else it's that I don't want to know, don't want to remember. "Ask, could you just fucking' ask" was the theme of my shit-toss.

Feeling like her victim, like I'd never survive this stubborn girl with no care for permission to use these, apparently precious, Styrofoam trays but also knowing, on some level, that I was out of control, I forced myself back to my room. One foot. Then the next. And see, looking back, that was probably not the wisest choice I've ever made. In my room, my desk was littered with her crap from her morning studies and she had left the computer on – both of which are huge pet peeves of mine. The sane part of me beckoning from the small fraction of rational mind I was working with wanted to warn her. But before that thought got air time, I began yelling in this baritone voice, much more like the howl of a reluctantly-mounted elephant during a mating ritual than a mother who loves her child.

She rushed into my room, a servant of my ridiculous rage. She gathered her things from my desk and shut the computer down amid the torrent of expletives.

I shut myself in my bathroom, hell bent on curbing the progression of my anger, now well past anger and well into lunacy. I ran my fingers through my hair, gathered a clump in each hand and I stared at the maniac looking back at me in bathroom mirror, all wide eyed and shocked, as if she herself could not comprehend the derangement of her reflection.

I gave my body to the wall behind me and slid to the cold, tiled floor. I cried into my hands. I still felt like a victim yet all the while I knew I was creating one, in her.

I wounded my daughter yesterday, I changed who she was and worse, in the aftermath I felt like I wanted to die, like I needed to die to eradicate any further threat of me to her. It was a pseudo consideration really, a play on ideas, a sham, because I knew all too well that any erasure of my existence at this point would only mark me forever as the lunatic vegetable tray mom. No glory in that exit, man. No. I don't even want off that easy – I don't roll that way.

I've been better but I've been worse, and this life I lead will, if nothing else, be ripe with my own accountability. Unlike my mother, I will shoulder the blame, I will admit my weaknesses – I will own my dark side.

The black Styrofoam vegetable tray – could have been asparagus or summer squash that brought it into our home. It should have been nothing more than a vessel for the vegetables, yet it has become a tag for a moment I want to un-own, undo or at least redefine. But I exist within a fixed and finite realm of screw-ups and lasting impressions and I can't go back like I'd want to – I’d walk into that room and throw the freakin' vegetable tray away before I used it as an excuse to berate her. It was never really about the tray and I knew that.

I spent the next day cooking with my daughter and I got to be the mother I meant to be the day before. And I learned something. I'm not a monster. I'm a human being; once a child, I was shaped in a context I have not yet outgrown. But day by day, I peel back the layers, and I come closer to the essence of the mother I always wanted, the one I always needed, and now, the one I desire to be.

The rise

Didn't sleep well last night. Was called out for a rape around 11:00. It was emotionally draining for me to watch this poor woman, writhing in pain for hours--emotional pain, physical pain.

I have stopped trying to expect what to expect--every time I'm called out, it's different.

She never stopped crying--she was so broken.

I became nauseous at one point during the exam--nothing came of it, just a sensation passing through as she moaned loudly from the physical pain of her body being probed and inspected, a body already fatigued by the infliction of a violent assault.

I wanted to hold her but dared not touch--she'd been handled enough.

Came home exhausted--her road home is SO much longer than mine, how dare I complain?

This morning I'm succumbing to illness--illness has been swirling around me in family and friends. It was destined to find me--to use my body for incubation and fruition.

I have bread rising in the oven right now and it makes me think of my client from last night. I needed to make bread this morning. Needed some sort of control over something. Needed something to rise.

She'll rise--days, weeks, months, years from now. She'll rise. I need to believe that. I need to believe that she will rise.

My Sunday Baby

...is napping right now. I thought I could just lay her down. After all, that's what they do in daycare, just lay them on their sterile plastic mats on the cold, hard floor. But no. She wouldn't hear of it. She wasn't pushy, she didn't throw a tantrum, she just whined pitifully when I left the room. When I heard her whimpers, I rushed back to the room. I was just in time to witness the most pitiful face a babe can make--the curled down bottom lip and little eyes brimming w/tears that haven't yet fallen from the sides. The expression that says in a most powerful way, "you suck a-hole". I couldn't stand it, I cooed and cooed as I laid down beside her offering my earlobe. The earlobe is her snuggle, her way of sensing and soaking up the person beside her. She's done this since she could first will her hands to move in her favor.

I rubbed her head, kissed her hand and stroked her cheek. She pulled on my earlobe her eyes rolling around under their lids. Her eyelids would get heavy and close but her will to know I was there, to be in the world of the awake, was stronger and her eyes would open again. Then, flutter of the lashes, a few smacks of the lips, snuggle of the face into it's comfort spot and alas, the final close of the lids.

Sweet dreams Sunday Baby.

Soon you'll go home and the only remnant of our time together will be the smeared handprints you created for me on my new glass door.

The lonliness of alone

Is it wrong that I am missing my children tonight as they sleep over at their friends' house? Like, I'm really missing them.

I'm not accustomed to quiet, to alone, to empty because my life is loud, populated and full, through them, 'us' and this little orbit we keep.

I won't cry but I could--the tears are just waiting on the order. I just wish I could say good-night and hear their voices before I sleep because that's just how my life works. I sleep after kisses, I dream after sugar-sprinkles and I wake because I want more of this sweet fucking life that I have.

It's all good. They've had fun I'm sure and I'm just raw for reasons other than having my children spend the night away from me. It's this opening, this unfolding that I'm going through. It's raw exposure man, but I think I like it.

yOga and the big "O"

I rushed home today, after a busy but fulfilling day, to do yoga. Like, balanced-all-the-groceries-in-my-arms-undressed-on-the-way-to-my-
room-to-change-into-yoga-clothes rushed. That's never really happened for the right reason, right reason being the centering and sense of bliss I gain from yoga lately. Before, I rushed to do yoga because of the exercise, the burn, the sweating--the bliss, if any at all, was secondary to the 'workout'. But following my euphoric practice a few nights ago, I crave the centering. What's changed? I have allowed yoga to be itself--nothing more, I have stopped expecting it to be my form of exercise and instead am allowing it to be what pulls me back from the edge, that which restores me. I move, I breathe, I center and somewhere in the midst of my practice, I step back and renew. I leave the mat changed.

I think I've finally found my big "O" in yOga. Bliss is to yoga what orgasm is to sex and I'm having multiple blisses right now. I've been waiting for this. I've been working for this.

Here's to the unfolding that shall certainly follow.

Water spot on my nipple

This is just a brief post about luck and chance happenings and it also struck me as sort of funny at this hour when I should be sleeping.

How is it that, on a night when I already can't get warm enough, I bend over to spit after brushing my teeth and my nipple touches the one small water pool on the counter through my shirt? Right square on my nipple, giving me not only a chill but a water spot on my shirt atop my nipple, now hard because of the chill.

Ahh...but wait, as a testimony to my ever sagging boobs, I see that, upon standing, the water spot sits sort of askew from my nipple.

It's like the water spot on my shirt is laughing at me, saying, this is where your nipple should be were they not so floppy.

Alrighty then. Point taken.

The Trampoline

Tonight, I sit here writing as my children's heads bob up and down outside my bedroom window on their new trampoline--their faces afire with smiles and delight, their laughs audible throughout the house.

Material possessions really are for shit. They can distract and disconnect us but I am taking immense pride in giving this gift to my kids.

Growing up, I never had a trampoline. I also never had a mother like me.

Tonight, I'm two for two.

Dirty Feet

Preface~

My daughter wanted to have a sleepover for her birthday—granted it was a month after her 'birth' day but that’s beside the point. Late last year, I had given my son the option of birthday cash or birthday party. He chose the money without any hesitation—$100.00. My daughter did the same but with some reservation. Later in the month, she expressed that she kind of wanted a party after all. Not too late, I offered, especially because I hadn't been able to afford the $100.00 until my taxes came anyway. So I presented her with a compromise of sorts sensing that she was on the fence. We could have the party and I would just deduct whatever I spent on party stuff (food, drinks, etc.) from her $100.00 and she could pocket the rest.

We set the date and began planning our very frugal birthday bash. The goal was to spend as little as possible, we were thinking $40.00, on food and drinks so she could still pocket $60.00. An arrangement she was happy with.

Enter Dirty Feet~

Including my children, there were 14 kids in my house--in and out of my house to be exact. This was hard for me--we have a 'no shoes' policy in our home and further, an implied 'no dirty feet' policy. Try telling a nine-year old, "yes sweetie your toes are quite black--were you kicking an ant hill?"

The traditional Japanese custom of removing shoes indoors has always resonated with me--I get that. Perhaps it's my inner Japanese struggling to surface or, because I'm a white cracker with no sign of an eastern lineage, perhaps it's that I treasure the sanctity of my home.

In preparation for the party and the impending dirty feet, I placed a tin pail of socks inside the front door and a few wet rags outside the front door, for cleaning the rock-kickers. I also instructed my children to "guide" their friends, to be good examples for how we 'roll' in our house.

Needless to say, the "plan" was ill-planned. I mean, really? But, I survived. I stole glances at a lot of feet in my attempts to be nonchalant and llaaiidd back. It would begin with the black outline around their toes that I noticed the second they walked in and as they walked past me toward the rest of the house, I would look toward their heels as they picked up their feet to step and notice how the black had found it's way into the lines of their skin *ugh--cringe*. And then, of course, I just had to yogi-up as I endured their stubby little five-toed vessels of filth contaminate my virgin floors--the cherry has officially been popped.

Most importantly of all, I said it out loud to some mom friends of mine--I had to come clean or risk the cat freaking it's way out of the bag and the skeleton bitch-slapping it's way out of the closet. It was such a relief to share my "dirty" little secret. And cooler still? They accept it and now, they get me c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y.

My Memoir in Six Words

Unbreakable in my unfolding of self.

I'll take the ordinary

Sometimes I have to pull from my toes to talk about this mother's journey and sometimes, on the other hand, material is spilling over. On those days, like today, when I'm searching the dusty corners of my mind for stories to share, I realize that even my own mind forsakes me. A memory of my journey doesn't have to be grandiose or sublimely tender to be worthy of telling. I wonder how much gets lost along the way because it lacks the color of certain stories or the sugary sweetness of others. What about the somewhere-in-betweens? What about the absolutely ordinaries?

Well, for one thing, the ordinary gets shelved in our culture--look at our media for a single second. We eat bug and animal organ smoothies for money--a strawberry smoothie would lack the inflated appeal. We swap mothers of polar opposite families and air the tensions, the tirades and the tears. We build houses for families stricken with the most outrageous of tragedies, as if we can weigh one against another--even our afflictions are held to a standard of grandiosity. We create runway models, fashion designers, stunt people, business moguls, pop stars, dance stars, millionaires, all with one key thing in common--the ones left standing in these public pursuits of glory are the "best". They beat out the ordinaries or the less-thans in our modern-day coliseum.

I will not allow the ordinary moments of my life to be causalities of fanaticism. I must hold onto them myself, notice them when they happen and heed their gifts. I have but one chance.

The other day, my daughter thanked me for not getting mad about a potato that she dropped on the kitchen floor. We were oiling potatoes to bake for my son's cast party and the slippery little bugger jumped right from her hand. No sweat kiddo.

Another day, my head caught my mouth after the kids and I took a walk around our neighborhood. My daughter was a bit pissy and this tends to wake the beast inside me but I caught myself. I let her be pissy. Well done mama.

The other morning I held my little man in my lap, his sweet frizzy bedhead on my shoulder and I savored our embrace. Later in that day, he wanted to paint a picture just because he felt inspired--he called it mixed media. As if a day could have any more wonders, my daughter took it upon herself to teach my son a few sewing techniques and praised his effort along the way. I was so touched by her support and kindness.

Moments such as these come so frequently yet they rarely get air time--on our tubes, in our conversations or in our recollections.

Celebrate the mundane.

I've knelt to hug him

When he was a babe I held him in my arms
head on my shoulder
eyes connected
his sweet breath warming the nape of my neck

As he has grown I've always knelt to hug him
to embrace with his fullness
to have his head on my shoulder
his breath, still sweet, warming me

This morning I noticed that I kneel less now
because when we hug, his sweet cheek is pressed against my heart
and somehow, my heart centers us
and my love pours through.