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.

Mattering Map

I’m well into midlife. People perceive me as strong, competent, and independent. I’ve overcome struggles and difficulties; I’ve studied feminism; I’ve traveled on my own (to Canada, but still, I was alone; and for a few months in college I went to school in England); I work with people every day to become stronger internally and more able to interact with the world around them in ways that bring success, joy and accomplishment, even peaceful contentment.

Yet when faced with a 3 ½ hour drive by myself, to the other end of the state, I noticed a deep-rooted fear, an uncertainty, really, about just how powerful I am. How can I be at this point in my career and my life, yet when confronted with a form of existential isolation (let’s be clear – if something happens on the road, I’m only as isolated as a person with a cell phone and a current AAA membership card can be), I feel the smallness of my own single life. I will drive over a mountain range, along and over a river, and through flat lands of tumbleweed, now with the added vista of alien invasion-like wind turbines. Really, I’m not alone.

But I am. All the friends, my family, even my trusty car and a lovely new sectional sofa, don’t really separate me from the truth of my mortality, my coming in and going out of this life alone, and the way I prefer to think that I matter. Not just to me, but to the people around me, and, in my grandiose moments, to the world. I like to think I’ve made a difference, that my single soul careening down the highway at 77 mph (the most I’ll risk in a 70 mph zone) would show up on a greater mattering map. But it’s just as likely that my isolation anxiety reflects a larger truth – I am precariously perched in this life, one moment can lead to it’s end or an unforeseen change from which everything after will be altered. I have no control, despite how I clamor for it. I won’t be noted in a history book and eventually all the people who know me will themselves be gone. I matter greatly to a small, cherished group of people, and I matter somewhat to a slightly larger circle. Odd to confront how much I matter to myself, how central I am to every perception, thought, sensory experience even when I think I’m involved with others.