Winter Wonderland

I’m on a weekend snow trip, which, for those who know me, is a strange thing to hear from me. Having grown up with snow, then choosing to leave it, I am not usually one who seeks out how to return to it. I’m not a snow sport enthusiast – my family has never been to a ski lodge, and as a kid I did nothing more than sled occasionally. No snow shoeing, no cross-country skiing, no downhill skiing, no snow mobiling. Despite being raised in the snow, neither of my parents enjoyed any of these snow activities. Not that they were summer sports enthusiasts, either. Mostly I remember being cold. I grew up before Gore-Tex, before layers of artificial fibers proved their ability to wick, before, even, “wick” was a verb, and it was still a mere noun. Cold fingers, cold toes, cold legs, cold everything. One year my folks got NFL season tickets for our family. We were trapped in the stands with every possible layer of clothing but none that eliminated the cold. Trapped in the stands with hot cocoa to warm us on the inside, but the cocoa couldn’t stay warm after a sip or two. Trapped in the stands and so miserable that I’m sure I’ve never thanked my parents for season tickets that other kids would have coveted. I’m sure I used my bone-cold, can’t-get-warm-even-in-the-car-on-the-way-home misery to punish them endlessly for the mistake of trying to create something lovely like a family football day.

I was an undergrad in a place with winters so cold that my eyelashes would freeze together after my eyes watered as part of a simple physiological survival response – like antifreeze on the windshield – keep it moist with salty liquid and nothing will crack. The sidewalks of the steepest hill on campus were heated, because without that, no one could make it up to their classes. I confess I rather enjoyed the fantasy of coeds trying desperately to make it up the hill before the sidewalks were updated, sliding back down in rows, a human Prometheus trail, with the addition of backpacks and knitted hats.

I did attempt downhill skiing once. In Scotland. I was with a friend who grew up skiing. Yellow, she knew, was the color of the “bunny runs” – the ones that people like me could attempt with no skill, no history, and no ability to maneuver in the awkward gear. Toddlers and small kids suited up for the first time on Lilliputian skis are a perfect match for the bunny hill, so off we headed to the chair lift to the top of the yellow run.

But it turns out that in Scotland, “yellow” meant something else, and it took me an entire day to go down one run: one day is the length of time it takes to fall down ungracefully, struggle to get up, move a few more inches downhill, then start the process again. The only reason I went down the yellow run was because after the ski lift dropped me off at the top, there was no other way to get down. This was something that I, a lifetime non-skier, had not known: there’s no return chair lift. Almost the only means of transportation that goes only one way, now that I think of it. I wasn’t keen on heading down the precipitous drop. But there was no airlift, the only other way I imagined out of this predicament. So I had to go down the slope, initially on my skis. It’s only after I fell and like a beetle on its back wiggled and wriggled and squirmed until I could be in the right position to be helped up that I found something humorous and the fear eventually lifted. Oh, and as I bring this day fully back from memory, I recall that at some time during the falling-down-the-slope routine we saw a snowstorm approach.

By the end of the day (it really did take most of the day to go down one slope) I was covered in snow (with pictures of that adventure to show it). It was the kind of day that should have ended more unpleasant and unhappy than it was, given my wet, cold, physically challenged incapacity to stand up after falling down, but my friend and I eventually laughed and laughed and laughed. Something about being in one’s 20’s casts mishaps like this with a cheerful afterglow, and even though there were moments of utter terror and the mule-stubborn “nuh-uh” initial reaction to the awareness that the only way to end something is to endure something even worse. Something about being in my 20’s that I didn’t master as a young kid, so I didn’t punish my friend endlessly for turning me into a pathetic, frightened, half-dead cold beetle on an advanced ski run in a foreign country. My parents I punished, before, during, and after each game; my friend I forgave before I was even one tenth of the way down the slope.

Anyway, here I am, out in the boondocks, in a place so remote that the snow is deep enough to sink through, past the top of my boots. Remote, yes; rustic, no. We’re staying in a recently built modern home with individual heaters in each room, a gourmet kitchen (stocked overly well with what you might expect from two moms who love to eat good food), and a fireplace surrounded by a big stone hearth. The kids have Legos and hexbug nanos and games and other toys and bunk beds. They’ve built two forts already, and have figured out how to peel off layers as they get warmer and warmer the deeper they get into snow play. They’ve eaten snow and delicately held icicles cracked off from tall buildings. I’ve got my adult pleasures all around this lovely dwelling: the border of a 300-piece puzzle completed, just waiting for me to lose hours in it’s completion; a couple of evocative drawings from the myriad art supplies I’ve brought, and one three-person drawing created with each of us taking turns adding something until it reached the slapstick; a glass of a good white Graves Bordeaux; a couple of McVities Digestives, a crumbly and just sweet-enough cracker that holds memories of that Scotland trip; adults and kids building more memories that will solidify our friendships. I’ve taken the (requisite) photos of snowy tree-limbs and snow-blanketed meadows. And I’ve brought along this little laptop so I can write.

And I’ve got gear now – clothes and layers that wick, that actually kept me warm as I trudged through the snow with very little ability to move my limbs because I was so layered and bundled, and could barely hear as I was wearing ear muffs under my fleece-lined ear-flap hat. An after-dinner, pitch dark walk in the snow at night, the only light coming from flashlights and head lamps. A mid-morning tramp over snow ridges on my first venture with snow shoes. A second snow shoeing adventure across tall snow banks, walking through the trees and seeing the footprints of the animals who’d come to forage. Sled runs – the first ones short and windy, the second ones sending my son and I airborne, picking up the kind of speed that requires screaming with a mixture of delight and terror. Sled runs – I haven’t been on a sled since I was a kid, and it felt youthful and silly to have such joy from a flimsy plastic contraption, but there it was, joy. [My son was less thrilled with the second run – having experienced for the first time the way snow hitting your face feels like a thousand pin pricks – and defiantly/tearfully called the sledding over. He returned to it the next day, however, on a much less steep yet far longer slope, and it was fatigue that overcame the activity, not fear. His first victory in snow sports!]

I’m sitting in a warm and toasty home, next to the fireplace, with views of snowy trees and hills and snowy mounds and bare trees and snowy rifts and puffy white clouds and white mist. I’ve had more enjoyment with snow and snow sports in one weekend than I had in the first 20 years of my life. Maybe I’ll give cross-country skiing a try later this season.

Sweet Memories

A friend told me she made an old recipe recently: Betty Crocker’s “Bonnie Butter Cake.”


As there was no actual person named Betty Crocker, perhaps she never had a friend named Bonnie for whom this yellow cake is named. I hadn’t thought of that cake for years – ok, maybe decades – but just its name brought back memories. College day memories, and, yes, I’m now old enough to be one of those people who wax poetic about the romance of those years. But it was romance, in all its forms. The adventures of learning and being on my own, testing out what felt at the time like my absolute maturity. The loves I created with women who are still my dearest friends, the attempts at love and romance and sex with men that were awkward and stilted and messy and painful and just about anything except a sustaining love life. The perfect blend of college-age enthusiasm and belief in invincibility, combined with bone-chilling self-doubt and fears of not fitting in or being liked/loved.

My senior year of college I lived in a house that for some reason had not yet been condemned, with four other women. College housing: inadequate heat, one girl’s room was what we loving called the original coat closet (off the front door, not much bigger than a steamer trunk), and we even had our requisite night with a bat in the house. I loved that house. I loved that year. I loved those friends.

And then there was the cake. The roommate who made this cake made a lot of baked desserts, cakes and eventually pies. One roommate was more of a peanut-butter-added-to-macaroni-and-cheese gal. One roommate was farm-raised, and liked to keep meals within the meat/starch realm. Another roommate favored large chunks of cheese from her hometown. My contribution? I’m feeling, now, that it was a bit weak. I could make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a hot pot, I could heat pizza on the bottom portion of my corn popper, and I could find the best, gooiest, breadiest, cheesiest pizza in town. Maybe I once or twice whipped up two of my Mom’s most crowd-pleasing entrees, both circa the 1970’s Campbell Soup recipe blitz, where America’s homemakers were learning to do a lot with instant rice, canned soup, and, forever after, the blissfully salty/sweet magic of Lipton’s Onion Soup in dried packets. My mom has a sweet and sour meatball recipe that manages to include instant rice, white sugar and lemon juice (it’s the bomb, especially with a side of mashed potatoes to sop up the extra rice-sweet sauce); and she does a thing with Campbell’s cream of whatever-comes-in-beige soups, instant rice, chicken and, you guessed it, topped off with a packet of Lipton’s Onion Soup. It shouldn’t be as good as it is. To this day, I’ve converted many friends, and their children, over to the joys of these two examples of 1970’s style cooking. I even spent a few years trying to upgrade the recipes to make them healthier – substituting ground turkey in the meatballs, whole grain rice, trying home-made cream soups, but truthfully, the flavor wasn’t there – the dishes became something to eat, but lacked the flavor memory that made them sing (and no one oohed and aahed over them, so what’s the point?).

Last night I made another old favorite from my Mom: peanut butter cookies with the Hershey’s kiss in the middle. My son helped me with each step, and we made much-too-big cookies for what the recipe called for, so instead of making 48 cookie dough balls and sticking 48 kisses in them, we had 17. This is about the number of cookies my son can make before he gets bored. His first bite released a melodic “Awesome” that spanned several additional syllables. My husband’s response was that he had been thinking about an ex’s peanut butter cookies recently, the best he’d ever had, and whether he could dare ask me to make them and, of course, he knew he couldn’t, and now he doesn’t need to. “What cookies? Were there ever peanut butter cookies before these?”

For me, they were delicious and memory-laden, the best food combination I can imagine. I don’t think I ever made a Bonnie Butter Cake on my own; I always left it for my friend to make (I helped her in college, I’m just sure I did). But maybe it’s time for me to bake one. I checked my seemingly ancient Betty Crocker Cookbook only to find that it’s too modern (1986!) and the recipe is omitted. But thanks to the Internet, the recipe is completely accessible. Imagine the memories it would evoke. Yum!

Image adapted from ifood.tv

"My car's in the shop."

Not a particularly frightening or dramatic statement, but allow me to explain how it became so. First, said car, a reliable, lovely little sedan from the line of cars made in the last decade, died in the parking lot of a sporting goods store last weekend. I thought maybe it was because I’d bumped into a camouflaged pole sticking straight out in the middle of the parking structure throughway, but temporarily out of sight as I was backing up to squiggy into a spot enragingly marked “compact car” which, actually, would have accommodated at most a bicycle or two. But the car quickly restarted, I replaced my lost gloves (yes, at my age I still lose gloves, although not frequently), and chatted briefly with the cashier about memories of when gloves and mittens were sewn with yarn into the arms of coats. Mission successful, I drove my reliable little car through the rest of the errands and day trips that filled the week.

Then Tuesday night came, my turn to drive carpool. I had in my back seat the chatty 5th grader and my silent 4th grader, and the car stalled on the way to drop them off. Not a good feeling. I pulled into a parking lot, restarted, and off we went on our drive, paying very little attention to the car, which was now back to normal. Except it wasn’t. I dropped the kids off, and began to head home, and didn’t make it past the first stop light before it died again. And then again. And again. But there’s no good place to pull over during rush hour urban traffic, so I kept re-starting the car and going as far as it would go.

I was frightened. And I did that thing therapists are always telling you to do – I acknowledged my feelings. Out loud. Alone in my car, I engaged in a monologue. “I’m scared. This is frightening. Of course it is. It’s dark out, I’m alone, and my car is dying.” I had my cell phone and AAA card, so I was covered. I could get towed home from anywhere, so I decided to go as far as I could before I called for the tow. The most that was going to happen was I was going to be inconvenienced by not having a car the next day, and it’d cost more than I could afford. “It’s just money,” I continued in my patter. “I’m safe right now, and I will be. Just pay attention – stay focused.” I was mostly frightened of being rear-ended, as I knew that each time I was at a stoplight, the cars behind me would assume I’d move forward, and I might not. Long story longer, I kept talking to myself and my car, soothing and encouraging us both. I coaxed that little thing with gentle acceleration and kind words and even some pats to the dashboard all the way to the local garage where I knew I could leave it and the car guys would fix it (Thanks, Gene and Eric). It died for the last time just as I turned to park right in front of the shop. A victory.

But I was frightened. Little moments of vulnerability and mortality piercing through my packed-schedule life. I didn’t want to die, and that was my ultimate fear. How quickly I went there – how thinly veiled our thoughts are on top of this ever-present fear. I wasn’t thinking so much about me dying, but a more primal, maternal fear – my child is not ready to lose me. Plain and simple: I’m not done being his mother. So I told myself (not the car, just me), “Tonight is not the night I’m going to die.” I just kept driving, acknowledging my fear, my thumpy heart, kept my flashers on, kept breathing, kept giving myself permission to be scared but to keep going. I was so grateful the kids were safe and sound and that they weren’t in the car with me. I didn’t have to be brave and actively parent at the same time. That was a blessing. I got the car and I to the auto shop safe and sound. Another blessing. A friend was driving right by the auto shop (on her way to hang out with me at my house) so she was able to drive by and scoop me up and drive me home (Thanks, Phyllis). Another blessing. I used a friend-favor for one ride to work (Thanks, Andy), and considered how many rides I could get from friends, cabs or my husband to get me through all the maneuvering I had to do for two days. Then I remembered busses. First, school busses entered my consciousness, so rather than use complicated driving logistics, my son took the school bus (that stops across the street and down 2 houses from us) two days in a row (Thanks, Public School System). It took me more than 24 hours to remember city busses, but I finally did, and took one. I walked one block from my house to catch the first bus, stopped at the transfer stop which was across the street from the auto shop, I walked over to find out about when my little car would be ready (not ‘til after 5), walked back across to the bus stop, waited 10 whole minutes for the next bus, then arrived one and a half blocks from the entrance to my office. It cost me $2.00. A bit cheaper than the cab would have been (Thanks, City Bus System). Blessings, blessings, blessings.

My car’s set to be completed tonight. All the disruptions and inconveniences have been handled. It’s gonna cost more than I know where the money will come from right now. And off we head back into our schedule-packed life. My husband will pick me up from work (Thanks, Honey), and we'll go somewhere (cheap) for dinner. I’m alive another day to keep being my son’s mother. I’ll listen to the final draft of my son's homework tonight, which includes writing a letter to his future self that his teacher will hold and mail to him in 5 years; when I get home from work I’ve got to wash his karate gi and change the sheets on his bed; tomorrow, the last day of school before winter break, is the day some parents will be in the classroom to present the class holiday gift to the teacher. I’ll be there too. Blessings, blessings, blessings.

What if . . .

I was thinking about fear the other day. Not my own fears (at least not initially!), but those of another. She wants to know what she might do with her life if she weren’t so governed by fear. What would it look like? What would she do? Who would be in her life? As I was listening, I had even more questions, most likely more about me, mainly: What if she opened up parts of her she’d closed down a long, long time ago?

I think we all ask this question from time to time. And if we’re honest, we can admit that we deliberately limit our lives, choose options as if “we have to” or as if “they’re clearly the right thing to do” when, in reality, it’s more likely that the fear to choose something else was stronger.

Of course, this line of questioning is usually reserved for moments when SOMETHING MAJOR HAPPENS. We check in with ourselves, take stock, come conscious to the way we are actually living our lives, allow ourselves a momentary awareness of what we choose to prioritize and do based on how we actually spend the minutes and hours of each day. As the SOMETHING MAJOR fades, we return to life as usual, slip back into unconsciousness, and the fears that hold in place all of our daily choices resume their place, unchallenged. We tell ourselves that we are so pleased that we’ve asked the question, feel so very brave and honest for having the courage to admit the discrepancy between thinking we do things for one reason and realizing we do them because we’re afraid. We’ve thought about it, asked the question, and we tell ourselves that’s enough; asking it proves we are as brave as we have to be. No one really expects us to answer it, do they? Think of the upheaval it would cause. No, after we ask the question, we put it away, tuck it somewhere where we’re unlikely to stumble on it again inadvertently.

I don’t know if this woman’s courage to ask the question will propel her to action, to choices she fears could turn out disastrously – except maybe they won’t – and, more truthfully, except that any decision or choice or action or inaction will ultimately lead to some kind of loss/change/withering/dying. Since we’re all locked into the human experience, we’ll all experience moments of tragedy. So why do we think we can avoid them – or that we should? Any decision I make is likely to result in something ending anyway – that’s how things go – cycle of life and all – things have beginnings, middles and ends. Even my breakfast today is now over. I don’t rail at the injustice of this ending, but I do when other things end. I don’t try to prolong breakfast as if every other meal will be a disappointment. And I certainly don’t want to avoid a meal just because it’s gonna end. But replace “meal” with some larger life decision – a relationship moment, a professional moment, requests that would draw me far outside my comfort zone, and the inevitable backing away response emerges. We back away from things we fear. We shouldn’t fear life. We shouldn’t fear mistakes, disasters, ruinous endings. They're going to come anyway!

What would it be like if we acknowledge our fears daily, wonder aloud about how we’re making choices, look not just at our calendars

of appointments and lists of daily/weekly/ annual tasks and chores and responsibilities and determine what, exactly, we have brought in to our life? Then we might be able to determine the mirror image –what is not in our life. Like those old visual perception exercises – where first we see the obvious, color-saturated image of what’s there, and if we look long enough, the empty space begins to take its own shape. Once we see it, we can never not see it. But most of us don’t look at the white spaces in our lives.

[photo from varenne.tc.columbia.edu]

Writing Stories Together

Tonight my son’s homework assignment is to write the first draft of a mystery story. It’s to include dialogue, six of this week’s spelling words, and he’s to define character and setting. We’ve been going back and forth at the kitchen table for longer than you’d think it would take to write a page. My son stops writing mid-sentence to tell a joke with no punch line:

“What’s got four wheels and spins?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Me neither,” he said, breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

He just looked over my shoulder and OK’d my punctuation for the dialogue.

It’s been dark since 4 pm. Our holiday lights are up in the window. My husband is in the kitchen making a lentil/lamb sausage soup, my son and I are sharing a cup of tea, and there’s a lovely winter candle with blue and white snowflakes on the table, in the midst of binders and papers and pencils and composition books and my laptop and holiday cards from friends and the withering colors of a fall floral bouquet my husband brought home over the weekend. The days are getting shorter and shorter, it’s cold outside, but this is a great moment of warmth.

Meeting the Buddha in the Road

I’ve heard that one way to reach enlightenment, or at least not to be so frustrated by daily irritations, is to assume that everyone we encounter each day is a Buddha, an eminent teacher sent to help us learn an important lesson about ourselves. Many of these Buddhas are wrapped in loving-kindness, and meeting them is a true delight, and we open ourselves easily to their teaching. Others are not so easy to meet.

Yet in this way of thinking, we are to greet even the most
challenging of people and circumstances with an openness to learn from them, a humbleness that perhaps we are their Buddha in the road, and that we are all here to learn and grow. The thorns of a rosebush make the rose more precious, make us slow down and carefully take the flower, appreciating how its beauty is protected by the prickly, dangerous bits. We must always anticipate the thorn, and we might accidentally get hurt, may be careless in handling the stem, and then we will bleed. Just a bit. And we forgive the rose.

I have cultivated many skills to enjoy and navigate the small moments of interaction with strangers and acquaintances, and I’m proud to say I’m almost always pleased with how I meet different people on the road. I have met the Confused Buddha, the Frightened Buddha, the Lost Child Buddha, the Grieving Buddha, the Lonely Buddha, the Jealous Buddha, the Insecure Buddha and even the Stingy Buddha. I have been pricked by these Buddhas’ thorns of self-protection, yet the wounds have been clean and easy to heal, and I have understood that the intention was never to harm me, but to protect themselves. I’m sure I’ve become the Irritable Buddha or the Impatient Buddha in response, but I hope that in doing so I’m forgiven, as I come to forgive these others for their temporary woundings. But usually, I’m closer to the Laughing Buddha – people tell me they love my laugh, my warmth and positive attitude, and I even heard from someone today that I have a little giggle in my phone voice. What a compliment this was.

Yet less than an hour before I heard this about me, I had encountered my least favorite Buddha: the Angry Buddha. We traveled for a short time together, this Angry Buddha and I. I initially mistook this person for the Creative Buddha, the Spiritual Buddha, the Enlightened Buddha. Maybe even the Savior Buddha, as at the time I think I was looking for someone to rescue me. That should have told me what I needed to know, but it didn’t. Not then. All I knew was that I was getting smaller and smaller, less and less like my usual self, like a Vanishing Buddha.

Even long after even our paths have separated, the Angry Buddha continues to appear without my beckoning. It’s not really a meeting, more of an ambush, a hijacking out of my safe and snug life. A hostile takeover, creating fear, pain and entrapment. The infliction of harm not through accident or the self-preservation of thorns and defenses, but through the intent to destroy. Without any control over the moments of meeting, I am often caught unaware, which by now is a sign that I have much in me of the Naïve Buddha. Every time we meet, I am surprised, stunned, angered, troubled and hurt. Where there was one Angry Buddha, there are now two. In the aftermath, I’m flattened for a bit - I’m hollow and depleted–the Defeated Buddha.

I’m sure meditation books and spiritual advisors would tell me that I should meet the Angry Buddha with compassion and kindness. To not form any attachment to the Anger, but connect with the innermost Buddha nature hiding underneath. But I’m not anything like an enlightened being, and I may never get to this place. I don’t meditate, don’t do yoga faithfully (it probably doesn’t count that I incorporate some yoga poses into my gym routine), and often forget to even breathe deeply. I just want to get through my days in a way that makes sense to me. And the Angry Buddha wreaks havoc with what I think makes sense.

I always recover from the encounters with the Angry Buddha. Then comes the glimpse of the lesson I am learning. The recurrence of the Angry Buddha calls attention to how much of my life is spent alongside the Kind Buddha, the Supportive Buddha, the Smart and Funny Buddha, the Benevolent Buddha, the Thoughtful Buddha, the Eager-to-Learn Buddha, and the Generous Buddha. Such a life of blessing have I now that these Buddhas permeate my household, my family, coworkers, and my closest circle of friends. My son is the Joyous Buddha; my husband the Noble Buddha. To them I am the Loving Buddha, the one they look forward to seeing each day and someone they eagerly learn from.

So here’s what I aspire to express one day as my gratitude - for both the Angry Buddha and the lessons you have taught me:

Thank you, Angry Buddha, for teaching me the things I am willing to fight for. You saw me as a flower – perhaps - but never a rose. You have never forgiven me for refusing to die after you cut my stem. I will continue to fight your attempts to take over my life and poison what is dear to me. I used to fear that having to engage in such a fight would poison me, prohibit me from being the kind of person I want to be. But it hasn’t. It’s done the opposite. It’s freed me up to appreciate and enjoy the loving-kindness surrounding me. I’ve had to grow different thorns and be willing to use them. Most people in my life see me as the rose, even when they encounter some of my pricklies, and they forgive me for them. You have made me an active creator in my own happiness, no longer waiting or hoping for someone to make it for me. Your continued attempts to diminish me have forced me to become fully alive, and what a choice that has turned out to be.

Oh how I wish that when you cross my path again, you’ll have transformed from whatever life lessons are awaiting you. But until then, I promise to use you, Angry Buddha, to remind me to cultivate loving-kindness for the roses in my very own garden.

I Woke From a Dream

There were no unknowns in this morning’s dream - the cast of characters, the setting, the emotions. Some of the plot details are fading, but the feel remains. I can feel a man’s hand on my cheek, and the way my head tilts to rest in the weight of his hand, initially comforting to lean just so. Later in the dream sequence, a look of meanness takes over his face, turning him emotionally into a stranger, warping the facial features and expressions like a Munch scream. But it’s my voice I hear as I ineffectively plead for what I want to happen, the fear and anger and the sense of separation from my child vividly real.

Who is this dream state mate who shifts from lover to betrayer? First thoughts go to an amalgamation of all the important men in my life. But I once learned that the dreamer, who is responsible for creating every character/scene/conflict in a dream, is also represented in every character. If so, it’s my betrayal, not anyone else’s. Who is the “me” in the dream – am I protecting my mother by putting motherhood themes on me, or is it really me? Who’s the child I’m separated from? My actual child, me disguised as a child, or someone completely different that I’m struggling with but I need the dream to transform into a smaller, more powerless person before the leave-taking? I don’t know what the dream was telling me – nor if was about something that has already happened or something that is percolating - a window into recent chafings or a reminder of unresolved struggles which are now so familiar they’re like old friends.

Did this week’s minor disconnect get blown into this? And, if so, which disconnect? It seems I managed a perfect trifecta, with moments of irritation, misunderstanding and loneliness with family, friends, and, of course, myself. I’ve been a bit more tired than usual. My writing has seemed flat. Even my cooking has been uninspired. A series of mis-connections and disconnections amidst an intense and over-filled household schedule. I’m getting everything done, but without time for a full rest – one that lasts more than a few in-breaths. The dream is filled with images of people turning away and not being able to get to the things that are most important.

I know two things – that I’ll never know what the dream was really about, and that I know perfectly well what it’s about. I’m supposed to move in the direction of true, sustained connection, with myself and others. Or, as I told someone recently, I’m supposed to “lean the f___ in” at exactly the moment when I’d like to step back. And I’m not the only one who’s supposed to get this message – it’s quite a good message, in fact - but I’m the one who got it at 4:12 am. I’m now heading into a very, very long day, a precarious way to set me up for just the opposite. Imagine what will be in my dreams tonight.

First Bike Ride

The first time my son ventured onto concrete on his bike – after a long, arduous process of coaxing, cajoling, bribing, yelling – these from the adults – and whining and defiant refusal from him – he started to get it. He wobbled, straightened, wobbled, went so fast I had to let go of his jacket and then he rode right into a telephone pole. But the ride wasn’t over. I made him get back up, we continued to our original destination – the market where he could choose dessert for that night's dinner. More whining, wanting to walk the bike, shaking out his hands from the pain. Big wet brown eyes mixed with rage and fear and powerlessness. He wanted a fried chicken leg and ate it while we were in the store. He chose his favorite, caramel ice cream, to take home (yet, no surprise here, he didn’t want any dessert that night). The ride home was emotionally painful to both of us, I imagine. But I filled it with “life lessons” and reframed riding into a pole into “inviting the pole to join him.” This gave us a little touch of humor – “You’re not supposed to invite a pole to join you when you ride your bike!” Which, when I read this sentence in print sounds ludicrous, but I was desperate to turn the event into something less awful than what it was. By the time we got home, we’d wrapped the whole incident into something we could both live with, despite the dual disappointments we experienced.

What is it about disappointment that makes it such a dangerous feeling? Fear comes to join disappointment quickly, anger subsumes all, but underneath it’s such a raw place, a slippery slope that opens up all the disappointments I’ve strung together like a beaded necklace, a never-ending pulling of polished disappointment stones through the fingers of my memory. Like a rosary, I imagine, although I’ve never held one, and I imagine that rosary beads quell discontent since they are accompanied by prayer. Nothing quells a lifetime of strung-together disappointments. For me, my heart beat is rapid, I am flushed and sweating, and pretty sure that once the feeling is opened up, sleep will be impossible.

My son doesn’t have many disappointment beads to string together. He will accumulate some, no doubt, as we all do. But perhaps he will never string them together. Maybe he’ll have the luxury of disappointment floating away, meaning nothing more than a momentary loss that he can make sense of, and move through it to return to his deep-down understanding of the world – that sometimes you invite a pole to join you at exactly the time you don’t want a pole to join you, and that other times you ride right by the pole. Instead of disappointment confirming that he is powerless in achieving his goals, perhaps he’ll experience it as a temporary setback; powerlessness isn’t global, just momentary.

It’s several years after that first ride, and as we walk or ride past the same pole on the same sidewalk square, he'll sometimes bring up the time he rode in to it. It's been restructured in his memory as something that's part of his own story, a battle story he survived to tell, and therefore the battle was worth it, and the painful bits have clearly faded away. We no longer need the reframe of having invited the pole to join him – he gets that sometimes cruddy stuff happens when you least expect it or want it to, and it’s our job to keep going. To take the disappointments with us, honor them for what they meant - because let’s be clear – most parents want a happy first-bike-ride story, and there’s no way my son wanted his first ride to go like it did – and in this way disappointments will slip through our grasp. The only thing left for us to string together will be the something fine we’ve made out of our disappointment.

Carpool Life Lesson (Not Very "PC")

Tonight was my turn to drive car pool. We drive with the same “older” girl whose father drives the convertible red Cadillac. When we went to pick her up, she wasn’t quite ready – she needed to find her shoes, comb her hair, grab a car snack, pick a jacket, track down her book. Her Dad was apologizing that she wasn’t ready.

I patted my son on the back, and said, “Get used to it, honey – it’s just the beginning of you waiting for women.” To the girl, I added, “Take your time. They’ll always wait.”

She’s a lively, lovely girl – she should never apologize for the time it takes to get ready. Should she get ready earlier? Maybe. Does she have the privilege of making boys/men wait? Probably. Is it right? Who knows. She makes my son smile and laugh, she uses her ‘please’s and ‘thank you’s, talks directly to my son as if he’s her equal, and the truth is he’s not. He’s a year and grade-level behind her, and the gap between the normative maturity level of 4th grade boys and the chatty, social, sophisticated girls of 5th grade is of dog-year proportions. She has her own cell phone and texts her friends, has stories to share from dance class, openly passes along the wisdom of having braces and bombing an impromptu math quiz. My son is trying to memorize jokes and riddles just to have something new to bring to the conversation. Tonight, she told an elaborate new joke, and my son interrupted twice by twirling a Halloween lollipop until she was distracted.

She brings things to him, draws him out, appreciates him, even tells him of things he can do that she hasn’t mastered yet; he offers her a short span of time where she doesn't have to prove herself, do anything different, or be anything other shan she is, since he likes her just fine as she is, and it doesn't faze him at all to stand in the hallway a few extra moments until she’s ready. It’s a fair deal, as far as I can see. No one’s oppressed, no one’s judged. Boys and girls - men and women – we will never bring the same thing to the table in a relationship. We aren't equal, and perhaps we don't need to be. All I know is that these two kids are very, very happy with their unbalanced, unequal, fully equitable relationship.

On Wanting: Part II

I finished the book this morning – I couldn’t stay up long enough to finish it in one night. I still didn’t remember anything about it while I read it, even as I reread the exact passage I’d saved for my own posterity.

My initial reaction to finding the quote was to invoke the memory of how hard I have fought for the basic experience of wanting; I began to think that I am still struggling the way I might have been back in ’06. But by the end of the book, I realize that I am NOT in the same place I might have been when I read it the first time. I do not solely want what I used to want.

This time around, I’m a touch embarrassed for finding life wisdom in a romance novel. There’s a lot of talk of erections, breasts, nipples, and naked bodies, and although it’s tasteful, it’s not all that erotic. Mia did go on to have an affair with Robert; Robert stops the affair in part because she’s married; Mia’s children confront her after her affair has ended to tell her of the affair her husband has been having for three years. The book seems a bit dated, possibly because its characters use dial-up modems to check their adulterous emails. Possibly because of the content of the medical details. This time around, I don’t want the characters to base all their decisions on blind, primal wants. Mia and Robert can want, they’re entitled to want, but they oughtn’t hurt others unnecessarily in the process of identifying and obtaining their wants. They should wait, do the right thing with their wants.

Funny, perhaps after having four years of a want-filled life, I’m now somewhat smug in thinking that wants can be delayed. Sure, tell the dehydrated, lost-in-the-desert person she should wait just a bit longer for some water, when the jug is right there, and everyone can see it. Nah, emptiness from years/decades of not letting ourselves want probably does end with some damage to those who have perpetuated the myth that our needs don’t matter, or they’re only selfish, or they’re just something that will pass. Damage, violence – perhaps these are justified for the brutality of tainting and dismissing our longings and yearnings. So maybe we will take a few prisoners as we reclaim our capacity to desire.

This time through the book, I’m paying way more attention to Mia’s mother, Sally, who, at the beginning of the book is about to have a bilateral mastectomy. Years back, my Mom had breast cancer, and three years ago I had my second scare. If I’ve done the math correctly, I’ve had one biopsy, one cyst removed, three MRIs and four mammograms since I read the book the first time. I now have an oncologist (despite never having had cancer) with whom I have a three-tiered plan of risk reduction (I’m healthy, eat well and exercise 5 times a week, do nothing to excess, and there’s not much comfort in having no risk to reduce), surveillance (scans every 6 months), and prevention (I’m supposed to be taking an estrogen receptor antagonist, a drug my Mom took when she had cancer, as a preventive). But here I live with the guilt of going against medical advice because of something else I want – a body full of estrogen, my skin and body fluids mine to enjoy as long as I can, a full dose of my libido.

Sally’s the one I’m glued to as I finish the book. After the death of her husband and the loss of her breasts, the brief loss of her will to live, and the loss of physical stamina from chemotherapy, Sally allows herself to love another man, named, iconically, Dick.

“We’re figuring things out. It’s what we all have to do with each other if we want to go further. I just never found someone I wanted to be with until Dick. It’s what -” Sally feels her next sentence in her mouth and then holds it against her tongue, its bite pushing on the roof of her mouth. “It’s what you have to do if you want to go further – unless, of course, you don’t have a choice. Sometimes . . . it’s there. In front of you, knocking you on the head. There’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, though, you have to choose to move closer.” (p. 232)

Sure, there are blinding, hit-you-over-the-head kinds of love, and these seem to remove any possible choice or thought. But other times - often, in fact – we much choose to love.

There’s so much to be said about wanting what we want, and being allowed to want it, but here’s the piece about what we’re responsible for – which is creating and cultivating what we want. We can’t hide behind others, and what we think they will or won’t allow us to do. We can’t hide behind fear – that if we move toward what we want we might lose it. Of course we might. Of course, we probably will.

In a way that doesn't feel morbid or overly sad, I realize I am going to lose everything that I cherish right now – the vitality of my body; the mothering of a son young enough to appreciate being mothered; the loving relationship with my husband. Life doesn't stagnate and losses will come, even if I do nothing to screw things up. Time and age and death will claim my present joys, leaving only grief for what is no longer, an opening for what will come next. I hope I will have the courage, like Sally, to leave the confines of fear. It seems so obvious –now- that we’re supposed to cultivate, feed, and tend our lives and loves like a garden. Nothing will continue to flourish without fertilizer, weeding, aerating, and whatever else it is gardeners do to grow their crops. I can’t stop and rest on my laurels just because I finally got what I wanted. I will have to keep wanting, staying open to create the next thing I've always wanted when these things are no more. And whatever losses I encounter, I’m the want-granter now; I will have to continue to do what it takes to know my loved ones, to keep learning how to love the people who love me, as their needs change over time.

I’m also thinking about what the author is saying about a woman choosing Dick. Mia’s name, meaning “mine,” is discussed throughout the book. The author doesn’t comment on Sally’s name, but it conveys setting out, sallying forth. Sally is supposed to set out on a journey, and to choose Dick. Maybe the author is telling women to choose sex – not just sex as an act, but sex as metaphor for aliveness, fullness, meaningful connections with others that transcend body parts. In choosing Dick/dick, Sally comes to him with puckered scar tissue where her breasts should be. She’s not bringing the “sex” of her body, she’s bringing the sexuality of her entire being. Sally’s more alive without breasts than she was at the beginning of the story, living a rather small, closed-off existence. Sally emerges as a fully functioning, sexual, alive being. Choose this, the author seems to be saying.

I don’t want Mia’s life – the 20-plus years of marriage and want-less-ness, where she was loved but not known or understood, and used this to justify her unwillingness to know and understand her husband. I definitely don’t want Sally’s life, as I’m terrified of Sally’s (my Mom’s) cancer and breast loss. But I want Sally’s renewed willingness to live fully, sexually, even if pieces and parts of her have been left behind. I know a little bit about leaving pieces and parts behind, even with a mostly intact body. I have grieved and lost things I thought were too dear to me to lose. Yet here I am, in a phase of my life I would have never predicted, wrapped in an abundance I didn’t have even when I had those other parts of my life. I want to keep wanting, and to be a generous want-granter. I want to keep choosing a fully alive existence, even if I encounter irreplaceable losses. This is what I hope to remember four years from now.

On Wanting: Part I

First things first. I am shamelessly (shamefully?) copying a format for writing this in two parts from my dear friend who posted a two-part blog entry. When I read hers, I knew that would fix the problem of how to tell this story, which when I started assumed would have one arc, but it turned out to go another way. So thank you, Kristin, for letting me piggy back.

(Insert Ira Glass voice here) Here’s Part One:

There’s a book I began for what I call bedtime reading – nothing with much literary value, but that allows me to relax and quiet my mind before sleep. These aren’t the books I read for ideas, nor do I read them for life lessons or because they have a buzz about them from being well-known titles or authors. I read them to help put myself to sleep. I picked this book up without knowing anything about it or its author, just that it had a picture of a woman leaning back in lingerie, so I figured at best it’s a romance novel.

The other day, I was perusing old writing files all the way back to 2000. I sometimes copy meaningful passages from novels or poetry to keep for later use. I came across a document with the author’s name on it, dated May, 2006. This I find interesting, as I have no recollection that I’ve read anything by this author before, and didn't remember this entry.

I opened the document, expecting to learn something from another book by this author, something that might relate in theme or format to what I’m currently reading. Instead, the excerpt is from the same book I’m reading, although I haven’t yet made it to the text I’d copied. How strange. I have no recollection of the story, the characters, the meaning I could have possibly found so compelling from this story that I would have written it down before. In fact, as I’ve been reading it (this time) I’ve been wondering why I’m reading it – as I get distracted when a main plot line is an affair, and the main character seems headed toward an affair and hasn’t picked up the signs that her husband has already begun one. Further, there’s a cancer subplot, which is a bit distracting. But I kept reading it. And it did help me doze off.

I titled the excerpt, “On Wanting.” I have grappled with wanting, with the fine line between the absolute right of a person – me – to want, and the accusation that wanting makes a person – me – selfish. I’ve grappled with this for as long as I can remember, and have only very, very recently shifted my understanding of my own wants, and my history with them. I was apparently grappling with this in 2006, but trust me, it goes back way, way further.

Old view: I wanted too much, I wanted the wrong things, I wanted things no one else wanted and therefore I was wrong for wanting them, I was selfish for wanting what I wanted, and, ultimately, it didn’t matter, because I wanted things that were impossible, and therefore I’d never get what I wanted.

New view: My wants have always been reasonable. I’ve never wanted things that were impossible, or things that were out of reach. My yearnings have never really wavered, despite the years of telling myself - and being told - that I must want something else, or deep down I just want what everyone else wants, or maybe I don’t know what I want.

In the past, my only problem was wanting that which was beyond the capacity of those around me to give. That’s it. I wanted something that my family members, when I was young, couldn’t give. My wants might have threatened their own experiences, since no doubt they were living without their wants being satisfied. My wants and wishes weren’t “wrong” – the want-granters were limited. I didn’t know this at the time, and I didn’t know this for such a long time. My guess is that those early want-granters still don’t know this.

There’s a quote I used in my wedding invitation that said

Blessed are they who remember
that what they now have they once longed for.

-Jean Valentine (1992). The River at Wolf.
Farmington, ME: Alice James Books

I’ve come late to the experience of wants being met, of being seen with my wants and desires and longings and not being talked out of them, not being ridiculed for them, and not receiving the odd, silent eyebrow rise that suggests I’m in for some strong disappointment if that’s what I think I wanted. Now, I’ve tasted the joy of getting what I have always wanted. I was, after all, as right as I thought I was. And I have to say, it was possibly even better than what I’d dreamed it could be.

I was curious about this former oh-so-important passage that I had to write down to remember forever (and then go on to ignore on my computer for 4 years, ignore so completely that I didn’t remember anything about the book).

Here’s the passage:

As she looks at this man underneath her, she knows she could get sucked down into wanting. Of wanting what she’s always wanted. Mia knows she’s greedy. To want more is selfish. To want more is to test fate, pulling one final, gaudy thing on board simply to lose the rest of the load she’s collected for years. Hasn’t she been gifted with her children and her husband and her writing? What about her teaching and mother and sisters and friends? But the need for this thing in her body, this loving with Robert, has always been there. For years, she’s been saying good-bye to her want, watching it float away on a life raft to the middle of an uncharted ocean. Good-bye, she thought, waving as she sailed on. Maybe next life.

-Jessica Barksdale Inclán (2006, pp. 176-177).
The Instant When Everything is Perfect.
NY: New American Library.

After reading this, I see the parallel story line about a woman trained to give up wanting. So I have struggled with wanting, for years, and have tried various ways to not want what I wanted. What was happening 4 years ago? Was I about to give up the old view for the new? Was wanting becoming something safe for me, so I could notice other people who had given them up? Did I rail against the author/character, “NO – don’t wait until the next life. It’s possible now. Want it, just keep wanting it. You’re not wrong. You’ve never been wrong.” Did I root for Mia to do whatever possible in the service of her needs?

Four years ago I was ensconced in the luxury of living out my oldest longings, the ones I’d tried to say “goodbye” to. I was relatively new to the experience, and didn’t trust it to last. I was awash in the largesse of having my wants acknowledged and respected, the spaciousness of having no one who made my yearnings seem small or wrong.

After reading this passage, which is ahead of where I was in the book, I still couldn’t remember how the book unfolds, although I guess it’s obvious the main character, Mia, is going to have an affair, as Robert is not her husband. I gave myself permission to stay up as late as possible that night so I could find out how the story unfolds, and to see if it gave me any more clue as to what was so important about my wanting back then. This permission giving is a small example of how freely I now throw around my wants. It’s a reasonable one, I get to want it, and I even get to allow myself to try to meet the want – I just have to stay up late enough to finish the book.

From the Mouths of Babes

My son is at the age where we have life lesson conversations in the car, en route to some activity. We’ve had some lovely discussions, and their brevity and the guarantee of having to end when we reach our destination lends a kind of safety – to both of us. These will not be marathon conversations from which neither one of us can escape.

No, this is the snippet version – drop a topic, get a thought or idea in, then out of the car he heads. And for the record, he’s often the one that initiates these conversations, as he still feels welcome to bring gigantic, unanswerable questions to me. We’ve had some great conversations like this, on pretty big topics – how do you know if God is real, how do you talk to girls, how can he start remembering to do stuff so I can nag less, how does he want to apologize to a friend if he’s hurt their feelings, what do I remember about being a little girl, are the people in China walking around upside down (since they’re below us on the globe and if you drilled a hole through the earth you’d get directly there), and so on.

Last night, we were talking about how complicated it’s going to be for kids in his generation to hang out with their friends, as so many of his friends’ families have experienced divorce, and now the kids live in two houses. How to know which house the friend is at if you want to hang out with them? What if the schedules are opposite? Can you ever ask a kid to change their schedule with their parents?

I anticipated that we’d end up talking about cell phones and text messaging and I’d steer the conversation toward developing the communication skills to ask kids where they’re likely to be at any given moment.

“Maybe grown-ups should just like each other more when they get married,” he stated.

“Hmmmm,” I stalled for a reply. We had a few more miles to go before our destination, so I had plenty of time to add something.

My son was giving me a life lesson, and it was my turn to stay quiet after the important revelation. So I did.

Window Shopping

Although I don’t like malls, I’m a sucker for a perfect window shopping street. There’s one not too far from me, and I go there as often as possible. It’s got a lovely artisan jewelry and baby clothing store, a pretty good happy hour place, a place to buy (and therefore, sample) expensive imported lotions and perfumes, one of the few remaining independent bookstores, a lovely kitchen store, to which I have heartily offered up hours of my life in order to be surrounded by colorful table cloths and ceramic serving dishes and floor-to-ceiling gadgets, and a high end place offering handbags, shoes, and tasteful collections of erotic photography – I know, that surprised me, too, brightly colored books celebrating male and female sexuality, right alongside some greeting cards and hand-made soaps. I’m not going to describe the coffee and pastry shops, nor the fragrance of the decadent Chocolatier’s – it’s just a great place to stroll and browse.

But one clothing boutique is an anomaly. Each time I walk past, I am struck by how unattractive its clothes are. The display windows show two headless, chalky white mannequins shrouded in all black, although occasionally there are some gray pieces; some clothes are shapeless, some body-hugging, but all are monochrome and all look unfriendly. The dresses are often paired with black leggings; clunky, chunky monochrome black or grey shoes or boots; and big, black, leather satchels. Satchels large enough to hold a full picnic luncheon for a group of friends, or to be a mega-sized baby bag jammed full of diapers and wipes and bottles and clothing changes and snacks and toys and parenting how-to books, but I doubt that any woman choosing these outfits is going to a picnic, or will be anywhere near a baby.

They frequently have at least one black leather dress in the window, but never supple or soft-looking leather that evokes the desire to touch or caress it. The most recent black leather dress (sleeveless and thigh-length as we’re headed into winter) has a rather bumpy nap, like you’d expect in cheap car interiors or even a floor mat, and it’s four panels are sewn together with outer stitching lines, smack dab down the front, each side, and the back.

Behind the windows, the store is austere, with a few clothing racks in a much-too-large-space, beige walls, uninviting yet nondescript wall hangings, and, not surprisingly, the clothes are all monochrome – but there are some browns hung next to the blacks and grays. Nothing looks chic or elegant, not even vaguely “European” – even though I imagine (hope, really) it’s meant to.

The shop owner is a tall, big-boned woman, who wears black, but usually in a kind of shapeless fashion. She’s pale, which is odd because she has olive skin. She has what I grew up calling dirty blond hair, shoulder length but without body or shine. She smokes cigarettes, which ought not warrant mention, but it seems out of place these days. She doesn’t seem chic or elegant, either, but vaguely unhappy, drawn, bored even.

The one feature of the store that seems remotely lifelike is the overlarge, stuffed (black) dog bed, for an overweight, old (black) Rottweiler. But the bed is usually empty, and the dog’s obvious absence lends to the heavy atmosphere.

I don’t know who shops in this shop; it doesn’t seem to have a lot of people in it, but maybe I’m just there at its slow moments. It’s hard for me to imagine that these clothes will flatter anybody, even women with terrific figures and long, slim waists. Maybe, maybe, a runway model, with tons of color in her make-up or who could add colored stockings or somehow breathe life into these outfits; but it is too ironic to assume a rail-thin, stiletto-perched woman, empty from self-denial and starvation, could bring anything resembling vibrance to whatever she wears. Maybe the clothes are simply for really young women, the ones who can wear clothes as a dare, whose slim, still-developing figures can make a statement in low-rise jeans or in austere couture. Women who really are just wearing their youth and vitality, and yet they have to put something on when they go out.

I’ve spent months walking past the shop, thinking they’d eventually have something more appealing, something more feminine, although don’t get me wrong – all they sell is very clearly targeted for women. But I haven’t found much I like. What I do find is that I get angry each time I pass. Angry that this is what’s being offered up for women to wear, as if someone somewhere wants women to look this bad. Angry that the store seems to induce a bitterness, that it conveys I’m too old and no longer part of whatever slice of women want such clothes, and will wear them. Because, let’s be clear – these clothes have been designed and manufactured, then selected and brought in to a small boutique, hung on the (drab) racks and (pasty) mannequins, but they are expected to sell, and such sales must pay the rent of this high-rent dungeon. I don’t get this anger when I walk past other stores whose target audience is decades younger than me – I usually feel a combination of nostalgia and pleasure as these stores and their clothes radiate life and the joy of living it.

I’d like to say the anger has passed, but perhaps it’s more truthful to say it’s mellowed just a bit, and no new insults come to mind when I walk by. But I’ve also come to feel a wry smile on my face, a sense of anticipation as I walk by, as I wait to encounter the next unappealing morsel hanging there. I slow down and really look at the clothes. I analyze the fabrics, the cut, the lines. And after that, I feel smug: I will NEVER wear these things, but please, please, please, dress the whole rest of the city in these garments, because if that ever happens, I’m gonna look great standing next to these women.

I don’t claim to have much fashion sense. My clothes are not from designers, and nothing in my closet dates from “this season” – let alone last year. My stuff is just plain old, frequently purchased at consignment shops, so I mean, old. But nice. I put on my clothes, and I look good. Not runway model good, certainly not fashion industry good, not even chic, but good for me. Good with color, good even with occasional black, good somehow. I look happy. I have several friends who understand fashion, stay up on the latest trends, add a few new pieces to their wardrobe seasonally. But they never look ashen or joyless (although I’ve never seen them in nappy leather, either).

I heard once that the goal of women’s fashion magazines was to make the reader so miserable, so quickly, that within just seconds of picking up the magazine, the woman was likely to take some action to make her feel better about herself. Any action was likely to result in spending money – buying a beauty product, clothing or services so she could look and feel better. Not too unlike the evening news. Misery sells, I guess.

But maybe not to everyone. I don’t watch the news; I don’t buy fashion magazines. I don’t shop at the cold/black/gray/unhappy boutique. This little storefront initially threatened my sense of self, then reinforced that I like the way I already am. So I won’t go in to feel better. Instead, off I trot, smug and happy, to spend my time on things that generate more happiness, with nary an induction of misery in the process.

And, oh, the treasures I sometimes buy from the bright, lively, joyful shops peppered up and down the rest of the street.

Watch Repair

I went to the mall last weekend – a place I don’t frequently go, despite being female and having, supposedly, an innate homing response to bring me there. My watch band was broken, and there’s a watch repair shop located in a kiosk, somewhere between the JCPenney and Nordstrom anchors. You can tell by these two stores that the mall has never really found its identity. Not like the new competitor, just a few miles away, with Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Hermes, and Ferragamo – and, of course, no lowly watch repair kiosk in the middle.

So off I go on a downpour-style rainy Saturday afternoon, tucking this task in between two other errands. My husband was working, my son was busy, so it was just me, filled with free time I could have filled with anything, but, instead, I have to take my watch in.

It’s only October, and the mall parking lot is full. Who are these people, I want to know, who willingly come here? I get it’s awful out, and not a lot to do outdoors, but, really, is there no better place to hang out?

Anyway, in I go, and I quickly find the kiosk, and the beleaguered young man who works here, by himself, in a kiosk, in a mall. He’s got his head hung over a blue leather watchband, and has four customers before me. The first is an elderly woman and her companion – they’re here for the blue watchband. I know a bit about old women, and no transaction is a quick one. So I settle in to my spot behind a tall, nondescript, mustached man, and begin to sigh loudly, breathe audibly, shift my weight from foot to foot, look disparagingly at the still-broken timepiece on my wrist, and generally make my misery public. The kiosk guy looks up and apologetically mumbles he’ll be with us shortly. Perhaps clear diction is contraindicated for kiosk work; perhaps I’m just testy.

My pessimistic presumptions are challenged, as within just a few minutes the blue watchband lady is finished. Then the stylish, trendily-bald man presents his bold, gold, chunky metallic watchband for service. Eventually an older couple comes in line after me, and we make small talk. Just this tiny bit of human connection is enough to make me stand up straight, stop sighing, and begin to engage in dialogue that is pleasant. They bring me back from the edge, restore me to my preferred version of myself – wherever you two folks are today, please accept my thanks.

We talk, we chat about nothing, we make small moments of light laughter, and then it’s the guy in front of me who’s up. The kiosk guy looks over in my direction, and I’m thinking it’s a total victory – I’m gonna be next, I’m gonna get out of here before noon, I can finish up with the other errands and get home for something pleasant to do before the day is up. The older couple has wandered into a neighboring store, and come back, leaning on the kiosk counter. The guy in front of me is done, it’s just about to be my turn, and the older man launches into his repair request while I’m staring, gaping open-mouthed and speechless, thinking I’ve just been skunked and they’ve stolen my place and it’s totally not fair. I stammer (perhaps just proximity to kiosks steals linguistic capacity) that I was here first, and it’s my turn, and the couple and the kiosk man are instantly apologetic. The couple offer up their reason for stepping forward in front of me – they are not, it turns out, skunk-like people. They thought I was with the last customer, and that it was their turn after “we” were finished. They thought I was his wife.

They see two people out for the day at the mall. The couple doesn’t speak to each other. The guy’s turned away from his mate the whole time she’s standing next to him; the woman’s broadcasting every possible message of boredom and irritation. The nice couple (remember, these are the two who had redeemed me just minutes prior) and the kiosk guy see all this, and draw the natural conclusion: these two are married.

“What a miserable marriage that would’ve been,” I joke. We’re all laughing, and of course, the kiosk guy fixes my watch quickly – for no charge – and I cheerily say goodbye to him and the nice couple, who finally have their turn. We’ve all found our words and our better selves through this funny instance of mistaken perceptions.

Had my actual husband been with me on this errand, he wouldn’t have been in line with me – he’d have seen the time requirement and excused himself to browse the really cool knife and cigar shop. But before he’d have left, it’s likely he would have stood by my side, spoken directly to me while looking at me; heck, he might have even held my hand, or stood close with his arm around my waist, letting me lean into him the way I like to (better for me to stay balanced while perched on one foot). Our vibe would have reflected something like pleasure for a small moment of connection.

I hope this is the way my marriage always looks and feels – not a testy/bored/couldn’t-care-less/keep-your-expectations-low union that’s lost its luster - even when we’re just running errands, in line at a kiosk, in the dreaded mall.

Legacies

I am the embodiment - literally - of those who came before me. I have my maternal grandfather's face structure and nose, as do my mother and brother. My mother's features don't show much of her own mother, yet they clearly shared some of their build: short-waisted and thick around the middle. Waists (defined by me as an area that should slope inward, creating two separate, visible curves of hips and bust), were not something women from this side of the family inherited. My grandmother topped this off with an enormous bust; my mother not so much. Three generations of flat, rather small butts. And good legs. My Mom's legs still look great - shapely and tanned during summer, perfect for lounging by her pool.

I had, for most of my life, this same boxy, sturdy Volvo build. I now have modest curves, a waist that indents ever so slightly, and a respectable belly. Out of clothes, I have a better body at midlife than I did in my 20's, and not many people can say that. I will forever be short-waisted, and some time well after most women accept the “facts” of what their bodies will and won’t do, accepted that I would never grow or exercise into more vertical space on my torso. And I finally understand that this - short-waistedness - is the thing that prevents me from being able to wear off-the-rack clothes with panache, not my height, my weight, my shoe size (big for my height, but I can’t figure where that comes from, as my 9½ post-pregnancy feet far surpass my Mom’s 7), or anything about my actual waist size.

The way my Mom looks so much like only one parent, I look predominantly like her. I don't have my father’s facial features, although my skin reddens like his so perhaps I have his vein structure. I have my mother’s teeth by composition, but my father’s placement (can’t really tell now, as I’ve had years of braces, night gear, and retainers). I have my Dad’s love of fried foods; we'd rather order a fried food option at any restaurant, at any time of the day. And he and I devour the fatty part of meat, rather than cutting it away and leaving it for table scraps, like we’re supposed to. My Mom’s more of a nibbler, and goes for bread ends. I have my Father’s quick irritability and just-under-the-surface capacity for dissatisfaction, as well as his youthful optimism and playfulness (harder to see these days, but give him the right moment, and you’ll see it). I have my mother's quickness to put up a hard shell - the thing that separates survivors from victims in this world, but also takes a toll as it closes off deeper senses of contentment, love and ease – as well as her love of family and ritual, and her fierce commitment to participate in any kind of celebration, as if happy moments are in limited supply in life, so not a one can be missed.

My son is now showing his inheritance of physical and emotional legacies. He has big brown eyes and long lashes, Mediterranean olive skin, a small nose and high cheek bones. I can take credit for none of these, as they are nowhere in me or in my family tree. No, the physical qualities I’ve passed down to him are a gummy smile, hair that will become curly and unruly if allowed, and his eventual need for orthodontics. He has a quickness to feel emotional overwhelm, and pronounces the letter "r" with a Jersey twang. Gee – these, too, are directly from me (no one in the family is from Jersey, but apparently mouth shape and tongue placement, crucial for the 32 different types of "r" sounds formed in English words, are genetically passed along and he's inherited my childhood speech snafu). He can't throw very well (yet), holds his breath when catching a ball, and stands on one foot when doing both (as well as his homework). I cringe to admit - these are mine. Thankfully, he’s got parental figures intent to get him up to speed with sports, so we hope to help him move with ease through boy friendship groups and playground games. He might thus outgrow the legacy of the breath-holding, one-footed-stance sports misery, whereas I never have – I still hold my breath when throwing/catching, and if it’s a sport with a ball and an object with which to hit it (softball, baseball, tennis, ping pong, you name it), I’m still likely to miss the ball completely.

My son is funny, intuitive, linguistic, creative and sensitive (mine? His Dad’s? I'd like to claim all of these, but he could easily have picked them either side of the family tree). He doesn't get cold easily, and can wear shorts long into fall; here he's channeling my brother. If he ever plays trumpet or coronet, we'll chalk that up to my Uncle Al, who is fully responsible for my years as a terrible middle-school horn player.

I have come to shape the legacies I've inherited, and add on to them from the part of me that has come from seemingly nowhere. Or at least nowhere from the physical world. My son has qualities that come from this other source as well, unknown, but clearly not passed down from person to person. He has more emotional resilience than anyone from either side of the family; he can get along with others with such ease it's as if he radiates some primal magnetism, but his isn't off-putting or offensive, just joyous. And trust me, he comes from a very long line of very good people, but none of them have an inherently joyous primal magnetism.

So I hope to get this from him, to mold myself in his image, the way we tend to think kids mold themselves after adults. He and I will never look alike - no one who sees us can find a similarity of feature or body style (unless we both happen to be standing on one foot having a gummy-smile conversation with them). But nonetheless, his legacy will be his integrity, his love of life, his joyous nature, and the sound of a Jersey twang when his kids start speaking.

A Classic Car

Last night, my son was driven home from an event by another parent, who asked if it was OK if he drove his 1974, collectible, cherry red convertible Cadillac with a perfect condition red interior. "Not many more nights we can use it this year," he said. "And there's a blanket in the back."

There's no way I could have said "no" - even though my maternal instinct ("he might get too cold") was glaringly in the front of my mind. I had to be cool enough, had to pass the test with this other family (who drives around in the car all the time) and, of course, with my son.

So he came home with ice cold ears but a wide, true smile on his face. He had driven across the city, on a rare night of crystal clear skies with stars and a sliver of the moon visible. He munched trail mix in the back seat of a drop-top Cadillac with an older, much more sophisticated woman (a 5th-grader!). Foreshadowing of nights to come for my little Romeo, who I hope will one day fully understand the joy and lure of cool cars and smart, beautiful girls, and what can be shared under the stars.

[photo adapted from meelot.com]

When you give a kid a camera . . .

"My Mom and my dog"

"My favorite toys"

"Breakfast time"

"Just where I want my train to be"

I came across these pictures, taken by my son when he was 3 or 4. They represent his world view, his valuables, what made sense to him and what was available to him to take in visually.

They are of terrible quality, no production value whatsoever. But I can recall the feel of being in the room when they were taken. I am in awe at how much of his inner representation of me may be as a headless kitchen appliance accessory - the ultimate food provision unit. Our beloved dog reduced only to her nose and the smallest bit of tongue (he never really liked "puppy kisses" - the dog was bigger than he was and died before their sizes evened out - to this day he still weighs less than the dog did).

I have almost as much attachment to the "things" that made up his world as he did - when I've sorted through his toys over the years, I admit we still have the ferry boat, the frog puppet and the train car. Perhaps it's me who can't part with these objects, as he rarely plays with them any more (although he frequently uses the ferry as a structural foundation for Lego starship bases, castles and cities).

Just as I still have the objects, I still have the pictures. I can't delete a single one. I can't even bring myself to delete the ones that are fuzzy or that have scrunched up faces, or closed eyes. There are more bad pictures I've kept - every "stick my camera in front of the two of us to get a self-portrait" even though the perspective is always flawed, skewed, and much of one of us is likely to be cut off.

I have even kept bad pictures of me over the years, the ones that forever reveal bad hair days, or bad skin days, or bad wardrobe days. Of course I treasure the "good pictures" - the ones that show me at my unlikely best, where I radiate more youth and beauty than I remember feeling at the time (as opposed to the ones taken with 'tude, thinking I was really looking great that day, and instead I look just kind of goofy).

Something about glimpsing these pictures every now and then brings back the memories of the things and places and views that used to be so important. There's no chance I'm gonna get rid of them!

A Moment

I was tired last night – the kind of bone tired I can get from too many days waking before, I hate to admit, 4 am. It was 3:57 am when I woke up yesterday. I had some things on my mind, I guess you could say.

So at the end of my day – breakfast and getting my son off to school, a full day of work with no breaks, picking my son up after school and getting him to Karate, making dinner (a mixed seafood pasta with a light cream sauce – a combination of shrimp, salmon and rockfish, that turned out quite nice), helping with homework, finally getting my son into the shower before bed – I lay down on the sofa. I actually was laying down. Just for a moment. When my son was out of the shower, my husband joked that I was “toast.” “Soggy toast,” I replied. And we all laughed.

We decided my husband would put our son to bed, and I’d go crash early. My son was disappointed. He prefers me as the putter-to-bed person. I like it too, and have almost never agreed to let go of this part of the day for something as minor as my own exhaustion. I love the end of the day with him – the reading, the bedtime prayers, the “Thank you, God” conversation we both have, the time for private, quiet talking and often not-so-quiet giggling or silliness that I’m sure I’m supposed to resist because it’s bedtime, but I’m a sucker for cultivating every possible moment for pleasure in a day, even if it’s after light’s out. [I just realized the double entendre in that statement - perhaps this is how our most fundamental grown-up bedtime intimacies are first created, in how we are put to bed by our parents.]

But last night I gave in to the soggy toast exhaustion. I offered for my son to lie down with me for a snuggle-moment on the sofa before he and I went to our separate beds. He just about ran over, and for the briefest moment in time, his body was elongated next to mine, my hand felt his warm, smooth skin under his pj top as I gave him a light back rub, I felt his still-wet hair on my cheek and his lavender shampoo residue wafted over me. We stayed like this for just a few minutes, the two of us simply breathing and being. I felt his body relax, sigh into the sofa and into me. It was a perfect moment that pulled me to a place where I couldn’t even imagine being tired.

Barbeque Pie . . . or, How you know you're not the same person you once were

I had my second home-made peach pie last week, although this one was made by a good friend who cooks for a living, so I refrained from all pulls to compare hers to mine.

She brought it over for a Labor Day BBQ, and it needed to be warmed before serving. After about an hour, I checked the oven, and it had never turned on. The prior day, my fridge started losing its coldness. I had 20+ people over, my landlord was out of town, and I now had no oven and no fridge. Hmmmm.

My friend reassured me we could eat the pie as it was. But I fretted; room-temperature pie was not my idea of how to offer up treats to our guests, nor would it showcase how good that pie might be. One of the guests had the humorous idea of using the grill to heat the pie, since we were done with all of our grilling. [This in itself was no small task, since everyone brought their own favorite to put on the grill. We had salmon and steak and tuna kabobs and salmon burgers and unshucked corn and pineapple slices – all grilled to perfection by my Grillmeister husband.] I’d pre-grilled rosemary chicken sausages and the kids’ burgers and hotdogs indoors, as the initial possibility of outdoor grilling was slim due to the cold rain jag that ushered in a crashingly early end-of-summer. The stovetop continued to work, even as the other appliances failed.

I used to think I was cursed. Not cursed like in a movie or a gothic novel, but cursed in the sense that if anything bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to me. At times I’d enlarge the curse to encompass my whole family. At other times, I was convinced it was just me.

And sure enough, bad things happened. Bad things that sometimes happen to just anyone, and some bad things that are more rare. Each occurrence of an unwanted event confirmed the curse. I joked about it to friends, and some of them knew of The Curse. But I wasn’t really joking. I felt out of place with regular people who experienced regular events and regular downfalls. I felt trapped into a future of unpleasantness, as by definition a curse doesn’t let up. And on and on the bad things piled up, my sense of destiny plummeted.

But the other day I had a houseful of guests, another dinner party 2 days later for which I needed to be cooking like a fiend, and no working appliances. My husband put the pie on the charcoals in the grill. It came out perfectly delicious, filled with enormous slices of buttery yellow peaches in a yummy, very flaky crust; and it was warmed throughout, exactly the way pie should be, the heat perfectly melding the flavors and textures. [And it was far better than the one I'd made earlier this summer.] I put the perishables from the fridge in the cooler that just happened to be filled with ice for our – did I mention this? – party. I called around to find friends whose ovens I could borrow, and I had two offers without even trying my next door neighbors, who I knew would say “yes” if I asked. I found a same-day appliance repair place online, and my husband who works two full-time jobs and that day was helping arrange a U-Haul truck for a family member to move while also taking care of our son (child care programs in our city are closed on the Tuesday between Labor Day and the Wednesday first day of school, meaning that elementary school families are clamoring to create some patchwork plan to make it through a day when most parents have to work, but the usual places for kids to go are closed), managed to make it back home for the two separate repair people they sent, since apparently fixing a fridge and an oven requires different expertise.

I was held so firmly in a psychic sphere of containment that I measured out my cake ingredients before I left for work, then made the cake batter the moment I got home – I was certain it was going to get baked somewhere - and the fact that it was in my now-functioning oven (with a new igniter), which was tested and calibrated perfectly to 325 degrees, before the repair guy had even walked out the front door – was lovely, but almost didn’t matter.

I found humor and alternatives and knew this would be a great story to tell. I never once thought the pitiable “why me’s” of my younger struggling self. I didn’t use the events to prove anything, except that the moral of the story is to be a really good person to those in your life, so that when something unexpected happens, you’ve got really good friends and a magical spouse to turn to. I felt grateful and blessed. The Curse, which I’d forgotten I used to have, is clearly gone. Perhaps it never existed, and my family just had a long, long string of painful, unlikely events. Perhaps I didn’t actually experience anything extraordinary. Maybe I just lacked the right kind of containment to make hard things seem more bearable. But now, I’ve got a Barbeque Pie story, and it makes me happy.

I Met a Young Man at a Party

I met a young man at a party for young people. This early 20-something young man had bright eyes that shone through shiny, tousled brown hair, an open smile, and a palpable energy of exuberance and youthful certainty of his proclamations. He radiated a sense of confidence in what he knows to be true, about himself and others.

He proclaimed, with satisfaction, that he got his first job at 15, and has been financially responsible since then. He left home at 17 and has been proudly on his own ever since.

Another woman, a mother of four whose youngest was exactly in this age range, asked why he left. He said he had to. His father was abusive. His mother was checked out. Heck, he realizes that since she was 16 when she had him, she really couldn’t have been asked to do anything else. The other mother then relayed her story of escaping home as early as possible – something about an alcoholic father and an unavailable mother who had a nervous breakdown.

My heart sank. It was all I could do to continue to eat the mayonnaise-y pasta salad. I laser-beamed my eyes to my plate. I could not look at them. I get so angry at these stories, how they permeate the lives of so many people I know, not just strangers at a party. How the story sets the tone for so much of the rest of a person’s life. The need to flee, to escape, to find somewhere – anywhere - else to be, in the hope of being free. Yet how so few people ever find freedom when this is how their journey begins.

In my work, I help people build inner freedom, even if they began their life journey years back with an escape. I help them find new ways to leave and enter situations, and, of course, ways to stay when it is finally good enough to stay. The work is long and hard, and often I become yet another person who feels confining to them; how we then struggle for the person to stay with me, just long enough so that when they leave, they're ready to participate in the fullness and richness of life. They are no longer fleeing or escaping in to. They go, with a tiny part of me inside them, which they find to be a comfort (mostly, at least!) and not a nuisance.

I'm trying to do the same darned thing as a parent. As much as I know I am raising my son to let him go, I want him to go from the feeling of setting off, of taking flight with full knowledge that there is air beneath him, that he has wings and his own power to soar. I’m happy to be any part of his leaving – the air, the co-constructor of wings, the ground below in case he falls. I want him to feel the warmth and protection of the doors as they're still closed - he really is too young to leave just yet - yet for him to know that at his time, I'll hold these doors open for him. We'll all be ready - or as ready as we can be - for his journey away from home, but his will begin as a send off. I want him to have the freedom that already exists, inside him, in our relationship, in our home, and that all he has to do is continue to find places to invite that freedom to stay.

When he is at a party for young adults some day, I hope the story he tells of himself is conveyed with his own youthful certainty – that his truths are proclaimed with a similar exuberance and conviction – but that to him, home was a welcome place from which his journey started; that his initial home lives forever inside him to return to. And that he has since created his own home, infused with love, replenishment and tending from the loving family he has created.

My Son's Face is Changing

He doesn’t look the same as he did even a few weeks ago. Sure, there are similarities, gestures, the same eyes, but the shape of his cheeks has changed, drawn a little longer. He also outgrew his new pj’s, purchased about 5 weeks ago. Ever since he’s known me, I’ve pretty much looked the same [thanks to a decent gym membership and Betty and Anjonette, my fabulous stylist/colorist team]. But I know that can’t be true either, as I look at my mother and realize that she no longer looks like the Mom I remember from being a kid. Of course, she looks exactly like my mother, but also not. Same with my son. He’s exactly my guy, only older and taller and thinner and sometimes, even, with a phrase or expression or tilt of his head I’ve never seen before. Him, and not him. I can barely remember his baby years without the aid of pictures; his toddler and preschool years are mostly absent from my mind but come colliding back when I look back over photos or someone tells a story about him then.

It’s odd to have a constantly-revised vision/version of him and yet feel myself as constant. But that can’t be true – my knees creak and make all sorts of sounds, my skin and muscle tone are clearly different from when I hit my “permanent” inner age, of about 26. That’s how old I feel inside and it’s terribly embarrassing to be recalled to my real age by a mirror, a look from someone else, or the presence of someone actually in their 20’s, who humors me with politeness but doesn’t really think I have anything of value to contribute. And this inner age predates my motherhood, so just that alone ought to knock some sense into my inward identity, but no, it hasn’t really. So I think I just move ahead and back across the continuum of my years, and can be or feel or remember just about any age (even my authentic one).

But what about my son? To me, he moves only forward, and each change in his personality and appearance morphs over his former selves. I have joyously and fully loved all of the sons he has been to me, but I grieve for the many that seem to have vanished, at least until something jars me to a memory and I can recall him younger. Sometimes, after he’s gone to bed, I peruse for hours the digital images of him that now live locked away on my computer. I can glimpse him there, or on the photos all over the house, and if I look long enough, I can remember the feel of him when he was smaller, where his body nuzzled next to mine, how much of him I could hold in my arms, the smell of his hair and his skin, the sound of his voice, the mispronunciations he announced with total certainty, his laughter.

Soon I will be an old woman to his permanent inner self, the age at which he will always see himself despite evidence to the contrary. And overnight he’ll wonder where the mother he remembers went, and how I became this graying, slow-moving, antiquated version of the Mom he has internalized. And I won’t know where she is, either.

I made a pie tonight!

I have been wanting to learn how to make a good pie, with the right kind of buttery, smooth, crumbly, perfectly-browned crust that I know other people’s mothers make. As a mother myself, I have now come to understand that I am among the small minority of women who don’t know how to make pie, let alone the women who whip up a pie at a moment’s notice – “Oh, the huckleberries are in season” or, “Did you see? Five-pound flats of blueberries are on sale. I’ll make some pies tonight.”

My aunt has made pies for as long as I can remember; her Thanksgiving pies seemed earthy, made with whole wheat and a rich, almost sunburnt color. But my mother never made them. She made delicious cakes, brownies, and cookies – her Peanut Blossoms (the ones with Hershey’s kisses that melt ever-so-slightly in the middle of a flattened orb of sugared, peanut-butter smoothness) still weaken my knees. An invitation to have dinner at my mom's is still greeted with the knowing glow that one will have a great meal, right through to a very tasty dessert. My best friend once took my mother’s holiday cookie recipe, which to date are still my favorite cookies, added food coloring and baked them just a touch crispier than the original version, and they arrived as a pile of green and purple dinosaur cookies which looked almost alien but the taste was spot on perfection; it was one of the most delightful holiday gifts I ever received. It should be no suprise that this friend also makes great homemade pies, whipping one up if she happens to have a lull in the afternoon. I guess I should also say it’s possible, despite my belief that she didn’t, that my mother made pies, and that I have unappreciatively lost those memories (along with aspects of road trips and other crucial family moments that I don’t have stored), and if that is the case, I’m sorry, Mom.

I do make some fabulous desserts – a bread pudding that, last time I made it to share with another family, there were only crumbs left on the pan; apple and pear and berry crisps from the simple (a recipe used by my son’s preschool teachers and then given to parents so we could continue to bake it and carry on the experience) to the Barefoot Contessa’s absolutely magical crisps. I’ve made tarts, even one with half pears artfully lined up on a rectangular tart crust; berry gratin’s thanks to Jacques Pépin. I’ve recently found a lemon bar recipe that was modified so as not to make you cringe to eat it, yet everyone around the table assumed it was the “original” recipe. I’ve got recipes for vegan zucchini bread and my dear friend Rick’s banana bread that are so moist and dense and chocolaty that they count as desserts and that’s how I serve them. I have frequently paired artisan chocolates with berries and crème fraiche; I have introduced my Aunt Marian’s pistachio torte to those who have never imagined the perfect balance of an exquisitely light dessert that has a neon green layer. My cousin recently showed me how to grill peaches, then top them with feta cheese and honey – they were outstanding and brought the novelty of eating something new. I have not yet claimed them as my own, but I intend to. So clearly, I have not gone without dessert, nor have I ever failed to carry my culinary weight when invited to bring dessert.

But no pies. And I love pie. I craved pies, not ice cream, during pregnancy. Thanks to my local Marie Calendar’s, I was able to eat blueberry, peach, apple and for me, the memory-laden decadence of lemon meringue. Lemon meringue pies were part of my monthly sojourns as a child with my folks and grandparents to a town even smaller than ours, and their lake-side fish joint that had, unexpectedly, a reputation for lemon meringue pies. This was part of a tradition, we thought nothing of taking a two-hour drive to eat dinner. Then drive two hours home. Fresh perch dinners, followed by the pie. Each time, the exact same food order. The exact same drive. We never even thought to try another restaurant, only Smith Brothers’ Fish Shanty. These moments hold a special groove in my neural circuitry, as the perfect combination of familial love and fried and sweet food.

But all this dessert history is now forever changed, as I have made my first pie. A fresh peach pie, with a homemade crust. My friend Nicole graciously offered to teach me how to make a pie, exactly the way I need to be taught. She brought over supplies and kitchenware to make two pies. I watched her make hers, then she observed me make mine, making gentle corrections along the way. She made an apple pie, and was reluctant to make peach – too much liquid, too many unforeseen factors that can change in the baking – but I pushed ahead in wanting to make something difficult. Go figure. And the funny thing is, pie is not Nicole’s favorite dessert – she just knows how to make pies and can make a masterful, delicious pie while distracted by the intensive demands of her one-year-old son.

It came out delicious – I was so happy and surprised and giddy. I took a picture of the pie; I made my husband take a picture of me and the pie. It was a simple, pure, deep pleasure to do something I’ve longed to try for so long, and then have it come out so well. Thank you, Nicole. I am no longer someone who doesn’t know how to make a pie.