I’ve trained a bluejay, out of my own delight, to perch like a cat outside my door.
He doesn’t want me to sprout wings and fly. He can fly.
He doesn’t want a song and dance. He has a song.
He has a dance.
He wants a peanut. That, I can do.
For Jena Strong.
It’s not hard to make your first movie. It’s not hard to make your second movie. What’s hard is to make your third movie. — Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep says and does things I like. This was what she said about how hard it is to construct a career in the movies, but it applies to everything. It applies to love and commitment, family, work, physical and mental health, and everything else in your life. She means it’s hard to muster enough commitment to see things through. To keep going. To give up your expectation that anything worthwhile happens easily, without disappointment, or without trying really, really hard.
I repeat it here because of what I see so frequently repeated elsewhere about things not working out. By the time you’re approaching your third movie, you’re not new anymore. You’re not today’s darling, but you might yet become interesting. You might become resilient and resourceful, willing to make allowances. You’ll let yourself gain some weight, for instance, and do silly things with your hair. You’ll make a fool of yourself. You’ll take risks for your third movie, and every one after. Because when you do that for your third movie, you’ve realized there is only one movie. It’s called your life, and you don’t want it to end in bitterness and despair. The show has only just begun, and you love it. If you don’t love it, nobody will.
This probably puts me in the category of a Kevin Costner sympathizer.
I’ve begun thinking in apocalyptic terms about what seems certain to be the demise of the US Postal Service. Admittedly, I’m a cultural throwback. I still think of writing as something that you do on paper, with your whole hand, in a cursive script that is elegant and intrinsic, like your DNA. I still think of community as consisting of people with bodies, using arms and legs and good manners to stand in line patiently at the post office, where we buy stamps, grouse about the three-penny price increase, see somebody we know, say a kind word, conduct our minor essential business, and go on our way, until next Monday or Thursday or tax season or the holidays.
I’ve noticed that they’ve started selling greeting cards in my little post office, which is ingenious, really, in a demoralizing way, since the only people who enter a post office these days are the sappy has-beens like me. People who saw those lame Kevin Costner movies in the 1990s predicting the disappearance of the post office, global warming, and the end of the world as we know it. And now we really do know it. read more
I’m posting this early because everyone likes to have their fortune told.
You will bribe her with french fries
storm the gates of the forbidden
amassing a mortuary
of happy meal toys
and extra ketchup packets.
Join the zoo, the aquarium,
and the natural history museum,
surrendering the educational mission
for another stuffed animal at the gift shop.
Buy an army of Barbies.
Throw good money after bad.
Throw caution.
Throw fits.
Ante up to the American Girls.
One hundred dollars a pop.
Thank heaven for doting relatives.
You will overspend on school fundraisers
for mixed nuts, note cards, and candy
packed eight lousy pieces to the box.
Buy two cases of girl scout cookies
enough to enter winning territory
for a beach towel she’ll never use.
You will overpraise recklessly,
overjudge relentlessly,
underestimate entirely.
Give in on the cell phone.
And the next.
Awaiting her text.
You will go overboard at Christmas,
blow out Hanukkah,
host the birthday party from hell.
You will exalt in her naptimes.
Cry in the shower.
Bide your time.
Bite your tongue.
Release her to the sleepover.
The trampoline. The mall.
The crush.
Scream your fool head off.
Or worse, or worse, it can always be
worse.
You will squander the good days.
You will, you will, you know you will.
You will fail her
and you will forgive her,
failing only to forgive yourself.
You will start over, verily, over again.
As it is written
in the year 2012 AD.
The mountains have more snow. Georgia dragged her jacket out today and went outside for one minute before she agreed it was too cold. She was happy to read and play inside today.
My sister sent me an envelope in the mail this week. She attached a short note:
“I found this today while going through a drawer of old letters. I think I found it in Mom’s room when cleaning up after her death. Regardless, it belongs with you. Now that Georgia is all grown up, it’s especially poignant.”
She ate a good supper of chicken and vegetables all by herself. When the spoon proves inefficient, she just digs in with both hands.
The date of the letter was Feb. 14, 2001. I think it was the last letter I sent to my mom before she died.
She thought the doctor’s office yesterday was one big hoot but the wait was boring. She is 20 lbs and 31 inches. She was very happy after her long nap and danced backwards and forwards to Barney before her Daddy came home.
Georgia was 18 months old. Not knowing what else to say to a dying woman, I put every little detail of my daughter’s day on the paper. I wanted my mother to be in her life. I wanted my mother to be alive.
Last night she had a bath in the big tub, and while she was squatting in the water, she pooped. That was a fast bath and a long cleanup. I bought her a small potty chair for her to look at and she thinks it is a waste of time and money. Good for holding Cheerios but nothing else.
I see how I was mimicking my mother’s style of correspondence. My sisters and I used to laugh at the quotidian details she put in her letters. Perhaps we thought she should make better use of the time and space to expound on worldly matters, things that would interest daughters like us.
Georgia misses her Grandpa to chase around the dinner table. She runs a circuit around the table or sofa every night. Where is he?!?
Mom died on April 13, 2001. Dad died on Nov. 25, 2005.
I will not tell you how my parents failed me; I will not tell you I despise my kin. I no longer indulge those conversations when there are more important things to say.
Our love and thanks for another day,
Karen & Family
My holiday wish for you.
It took a very long while. Thirteen years. It took a lot of people. Nine thousand or so. We had to travel a far way. From California to Florida. To wake up awfully early. Five a.m. We took a car, a plane and then a bus before we sat on the shore of Banana Creek in the drizzle of a gray dawn to watch the Mars Science Laboratory – NASA’s newest and largest rover – lift off from Cape Canaveral.
The rover will look for the smallest signs of life.
My husband had a role in its engineering for several years. I do not recall the stretch of time with particularity. In the heroic cause of ordinary life, the days do not shine with glory.
We sat in bleachers for two hours as the minutes and clouds passed. We chatted with our neighbors, compared stories of kids and colleges, and drank coffee and hot chocolate, our gaze focused lightly on the horizon, where a shiny sliver stood against all odds that time could yet stop, or the day turn disastrous.
As the count drew down, the flight director made one more audible poll of system flight controllers for a go/no-go call, a spoken ritual broadcast on loudspeaker. There was no no given. There was only go, and again, go, and again, go.
Go.
Go.
Go, and all accounted for, go.
Certain then that neither earth nor sky would intercede, we stood and crossed our hearts and sang an anthem, then heard one last benediction, one final decree, a dedication to all the men and women who had risen each day to this task, traversing their own long years and brave distance, in the split second before their work could be judged as success or failure, taking measure by each part, each step, allowing the greatness to be no greater than the small in each of us.
And I thought to myself: Could there ever be life more intelligent than this? The propulsion of human ignition, the momentum of life itself, the genius of the inevitable, irreversible, go.
The first email came at 2:24 a.m., a sob in the dark from a woman in Amsterdam, the mother of two tenderly young sons and the wife of a man who had just been diagnosed with one of the most virulent forms of leukemia. Her name is Roos, or as she first introduced herself to me, Rose.
Much of my writing this year, both on this blog and off, has been inspired by her, as she searched for the consolations of faith and friendship — some way to face the fear, isolation, and despair of a dark journey. Her questions became my own, and her life thus mine.
Miraculously, her husband has completed chemotherapy and a double cord blood transplant. He is at home. The marvels of the medical establishment have run their course. Now she will care for him for the next six months or year, administering a daily protocol of high-cost medicines that are not fully reimbursed. She doesn’t know how they will do this.
When she wrote yesterday about the newest stage of their ordeal — the shocking cost of survival — wondering how to pay for next week’s prescriptions, taxi fare, heating and electricity, I knew what it was time for me to do.
It’s time to raise roses.
Please consider giving even a small amount for the Roos & Kenji Medical Fund — $2 for coffee; $5 for laundry; $30 for a week of medicine. The need may seem insignificant or remote to you. These times are so hard for everyone I don’t know how I even have the nerve to ask.
I’ve never launched an appeal before, but I know from growing roses that every bud blooms. This ceaseless bloom is what makes life beautiful even in the harshest of circumstances.
This week and always, may you be blessed by the fruits of your generosity, and take good care of your family.
To donate in US dollars:
To donate in Euros:
If you are reading this post via email, these donation buttons may be deactivated. Please visit my blog on the web to contribute. Thank you.
When my daughter was born prematurely, they said she might not breathe. Then they said she might be in a hospital for two months. They said she might need a year to catch up. Soon enough, she was at the top of the charts. Then they said she might be delayed. Then they said she was ahead. Then just last week someone said she might be slow, and need an extra year to catch up.
I no longer have faith in these pronouncements. My daughter has never been anything but completely herself, no matter what they called it.
All parents struggle with fear, hope, and expectations for their children, so I wanted to respond publicly to a mother who contacted me last week.
I’m totally unqualified to give guidance in her circumstance, so I’m only going on faith. That’s all any of us has to go on.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my mail. I feel a bit silly for writing to you, but I decided to get over that because my need for relief is so great.
The willingness to feel foolish is the first step on the path. It’s also the last step on the path. To be honest, it’s every step on the path.
I am mother to two children: a less ordinary boy of just 5 years with a mild disability; and a girl of 2 1/2. I have noticed that having a non-average child complicates matters in a way I never saw coming.
Give yourself credit for what you didn’t see coming. Most of us think we see much farther ahead than we really can. We anticipate outcomes and draw foregone conclusions. Then we leap to either a false sense of security or a false sense of insecurity. Anything we conclude about the future is false. All that we can ever see is what is right in front of our eyes, and so I encourage you to keep that focus. Then you can be sure that you are always seeing clearly, because you are seeing things as they are.
It takes strength to see things as they are without interpreting it to mean one thing or another.
I’m not one of those mothers who always knew that there was something wrong. It is rather the opposite. My son feels OK to me. I see his delayed development and the stress he experiences because of that, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. I see a solid foundation in him and know that he will grow.
You’ve said two things here that are profound. First “my son feels OK to me.” This is the peace we seek: to be OK even when it is not OK. What makes it OK is the second thing you said, “it’s nothing we can’t handle.” This is the ground of faith. Not faith in a certain set of outcomes — the ones we want, wish, like, push, and prod for — but faith rooted in the reality of the present moment. The present is where we stand, and to stand upright where we are is the embodiment of strength. This is the strength we use to handle things as they occur, staying steady and aware without getting caught in the mind-spinning panic and paranoia of a future we cannot predict.
And let’s be clear: the future is unpredictable for everyone, no matter what. read more
Last week I received this message from a young mother. I asked if I could respond to her via this post so others would benefit. No matter what our stage of parenting, we could all use a little time out to reflect and refresh.
I have two little girls, age 3 1/2 and 1 1/2. They are wonderful and show me what aspects I need to work on as a person and a mother.
Children are indeed wonderful. They are always showing us aspects of ourselves we aren’t familiar with. One aspect, for instance, is happiness. No one has ever made a mother feel as happy as her children do. The other aspect is sadness and despair. We’ve never felt so frustrated, hopeless or inadequate. Every day our children introduce us to a completely new human being: their mother. And although she vaguely resembles someone we used to know, at times we hardly recognize ourselves. When it becomes especially tiresome and difficult, our relationship with our children sounds an alarm. We need rescued.
I have them both at home with me everyday except for four hours each week. Perhaps I’m overwhelmed but lately I’m finding motherhood to be a total drag.
Too much togetherness is too much. Every mother needs more help. The first step is to admit it; the second step is to ask for it; and the third step is to take the help that comes. You never know where help will come from. Not every angel wears wings.
When we have help taking care of our children, it magnifies the love in our lives. When either by circumstance or choice we think we have to do it all by ourselves, we scrimp on love. Everyone suffers for it.
We don’t always have the money to pay for help, so we have to rely on family. We don’t always have family nearby so we have to make friends. We don’t all have friends so we have to be brave. We have to speak up, make calls, trust strangers, invite people over, walk the street, meet, listen and console one another. Last week I called a friend who talked me off a ledge. Just by contacting me you’ve done the same thing for yourself. And look: no one jumped. read more
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. – The Beatles
I’ve just completed 13,000 miles of travel this fall. What’s the takeaway? A giveaway.
Go to Taslim’s blog this week to win a signed copy of Momma Zen. Go see Roos to win tokens of love. And here on my blog, leave as many comments as you like and I’ll be giving away a signed copy of Belly Button Bliss, a book of happy birth stories compiled by my generous friend Jennifer Derryberry Mann.
Enter often. Take all the love that comes. All contests end Friday, Oct. 28.
With love, Maezen.
The winner of Belly Button Bliss is Jim, who had the presence of mind to enter three times!
Dense fog covered the foothills this morning. It rolled over the ground in such billows I thought it might be fire. But it was love.
I used to wish I had the presence of mind to mark my calendar every time my daughter caught some bug so I could track the attacks each year. I would no longer be overwhelmed by the slog of sneezes and wheezes, sinus and ear infections, if I could see the enemy coming.
These days I would mark my calendar with something else. The days one of us shatters and breaks apart, loosens a scream or a slam, and we enter the fog of anger where neither of us sees a way out. We become each other’s enemy. Perhaps they are equally predictable.
What am I thinking? That I can outrun the trouble? Outsmart the pain?
As before, I wake my daughter every morning with a kiss.
“I sure do love you.”
“I love you too.”
My wounds are just stones in my shoe. Tiny, temporary, and easy to take care of. Not like the path ahead of this family, and this family, and this one, who are teaching me so much more about love and fog and waking each morning with a kiss.
“I’m worried about my friends walking to school,” she said as we entered a thick bank. I told her not to worry.
“When you are on the ground, you can see right in front of you. Not far, but just far enough to keep going.”
I am sure of nothing but this: I sure do love you. Love is the one thing for sure.
***
I hope you can make your way to Athens, Georgia this Saturday. It might be a far and long trip for both of us, but there will be love in return.
Love Beyond Limits parenting workshop in Athens, GA, Saturday, Oct. 22
Giving away the moments of your life, and four free passes to the Pittsburgh Plunge retreat on Saturday, Oct. 1. Leave a comment or send me a private message to claim your prize.
Updated to add: All passes have been awarded but the retreat is still open for registration at this link.
