From the book Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols:
Too many of us live overwhelmed -- suffocated by work, personal conflicts, the intrusion of technology and media. Trying to do everything, we end up stressed about almost anything. We check our voice mail at midnight, our e-mail at dawn, and spend the time in between bouncing from website to website, viral video to viral video. Perpetually exhausted, we make bad decisions at work, at home, on the playing field, and behind the wheel. We get flabby because we decide we don't have the time to take care of ourselves, a decision ratified by the fact that those "extra" hours are filled with e-mailing, doing reports, attending meetings, updating systems to stay current, repairing what's broken. We're constantly trying to quit one habit just to start another. We say the wrong things to people we love, and love the wrong things because expediency and proximity make it easier to embrace what's passing right in front of us. We make excuses about making excuses, but we still can't seem to stop the avalanche. All of this has a significant economic cost as "stress and its related comorbid diseases are responsible for a large proportion of disability worldwide."
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Friday, August 8, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Read Elsewhere: Anna Quindlen
From Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen:
"Sometimes I tell my children - well, actually, frequently I tell my children - that the single most important decision they will make is not where to live, or what to do for a living, it's who they will marry. Part of this is the grandchild factor; I want mine to have two great parents if at all possible. But part is because the span of their years will be so marked by the life they build, day by day, in tandem with another."
"Sometimes I tell my children - well, actually, frequently I tell my children - that the single most important decision they will make is not where to live, or what to do for a living, it's who they will marry. Part of this is the grandchild factor; I want mine to have two great parents if at all possible. But part is because the span of their years will be so marked by the life they build, day by day, in tandem with another."
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Read Elsewhere: Benediction
"What if we said to our enemies: We are the most powerful nation on earth. We can destroy you. We can kill your children. We can make ruins of your cities and villages and when we're finished you won't even know how to look for the places where they used to be. We have the power to take away your water and to scorch your earth, to rob you of the very fundamentals of life. We can change the actual day into actual night. We can do all of these things to you. And more.
But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the will and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads and highways, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture, preserve your temples and mosques. In fact, we are going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you've done: We are going to love you. We have set our hearts to it."
But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the will and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads and highways, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture, preserve your temples and mosques. In fact, we are going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you've done: We are going to love you. We have set our hearts to it."
Read Elsewhere: Half a Life
From Half a Life by Darin Strauss:
"I'm surprising myself by grinning now, just recalling this. There's a pleasant, weird vibe you get from remembering a moment of early closeness with someone, in the time before you realized this closeness was going to become your life."
*****
"I find it an amazing stroke of luck to be married to (her). To be a parent with (her). That's the meter you come up with, as you approach forty. If your relationship fills you with a sense of luck, you've chosen well."
*****
"Things don't go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future.
But we keep making our way, as we have to. We're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult. I think that's the whole of the answer. We make our way, and effort and time give us cushion and dignity. And as we age, we're riding higher in the saddle, seeing more terrain.
So it's an epiphany after all. You have it in your hand the whole time."
"I'm surprising myself by grinning now, just recalling this. There's a pleasant, weird vibe you get from remembering a moment of early closeness with someone, in the time before you realized this closeness was going to become your life."
*****
"I find it an amazing stroke of luck to be married to (her). To be a parent with (her). That's the meter you come up with, as you approach forty. If your relationship fills you with a sense of luck, you've chosen well."
*****
"Things don't go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future.
But we keep making our way, as we have to. We're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult. I think that's the whole of the answer. We make our way, and effort and time give us cushion and dignity. And as we age, we're riding higher in the saddle, seeing more terrain.
So it's an epiphany after all. You have it in your hand the whole time."
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Best Moment of My Day
Admired writer Shauna Niequist recently wrote a post about the best moment of her day and invited readers to share their own. I'm not sure I've ever really thought about it. I love the first sip of coffee in the morning, my morning run, praying before dinner when all four of us are there together, almost-daily phone calls with a certain friend, kissing Jason when he gets home from work. But if I had to choose a favorite, it'd be this:
The girls, freshly showered and be-jammied, snuggled next to me while I read to them before bed. Our family, together again at the end of the day. A book (The Secret Garden, Amelia Bedelia, anything by Kate Di Camillo) holding our attention. The promise of a glass of wine on the couch or the back patio in fifteen minutes. The knowledge that we're all home safe for the night.
I don't particularly enjoy the lead-up to this moment (hurry, take a shower, brush your teeth, stop petting the cat, brush more, fill your water bottle, choose a book, leave the cat alone), but it's awfully hard to top those few precious minutes when the three (sometimes four) of us are huddled together over a book on that darn couch Jason and I bought from a used furniture store in Ann Arbor in 1999. It's right where I want to be, at least six out of seven nights of the week. It's the best moment of my day.
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| Bedtime stories, Mother's Day 2013 |
The girls, freshly showered and be-jammied, snuggled next to me while I read to them before bed. Our family, together again at the end of the day. A book (The Secret Garden, Amelia Bedelia, anything by Kate Di Camillo) holding our attention. The promise of a glass of wine on the couch or the back patio in fifteen minutes. The knowledge that we're all home safe for the night.
I don't particularly enjoy the lead-up to this moment (hurry, take a shower, brush your teeth, stop petting the cat, brush more, fill your water bottle, choose a book, leave the cat alone), but it's awfully hard to top those few precious minutes when the three (sometimes four) of us are huddled together over a book on that darn couch Jason and I bought from a used furniture store in Ann Arbor in 1999. It's right where I want to be, at least six out of seven nights of the week. It's the best moment of my day.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Good Things, April 2013
 |
| First dune hike of the season |
 |
| Filling cream puffs on Easter with Grandma |
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| Jemma's family |
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| Running and fundraising with a great friend |
 |
| This one, with her head constantly in a book |
 |
| This one, with her fingers dancing across the keys |
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| Making Jolly Rancher suckers on a Sunday afternoon |
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| Stinking up the house & setting off the smoke alarm with this yumminess |
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| Sous chef, stirring the risotto |
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| Irresistible bright pink rain boots |
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| My little daffodils, finally blooming |
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| Showing some speed and tenacity on the field |
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| Little artist #1 |
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| Little artist #2 |
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Bread & Wine
One day in February, when the wind was whipping and the snow was falling and I felt nothing but a vague dread that winter was never, ever going to end, an advance copy of Shauna Niequist's new book, Bread & Wine, landed on my front step. Ripping it out of its envelope, I knew even before I peeked inside that I would love it. First of all, I'd loved both of her previous books (Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet), and I read her blog avidly. But I also feel a small kinship with Niequist because of the many similarities we share: I live in Grand Rapids, where she once lived; she summers in South Haven, where I once lived; we both have one brother, husbands who love music, and two little kids; we've both run the Chicago Marathon; we both take plenty of Instagram photos of food, love summer, and read constantly. So it's no surprise that I loved Bread & Wine, too. The question is, will you love it?
I think you will. Bread & Wine is a collection of essays about a variety of topics, but I'd say it's mostly about relationships, community, travel, growth, God, courage, authenticity, and food. Niequist is especially interested in the way that food brings people together and nourishes them both physically and spiritually, so she's included a recipe at the end of almost every chapter. Think of a mash-up of Ina Garten, Molly Wizenberg, Anne Lamott, and Ruth Reichl, and you're getting an idea of the book. And though her writing is not as darkly funny as Lamott's and her foodie credentials are not as stellar as Garten's or Reichl's, what Shauna does have is the honest, encouraging voice of a neighbor or sister, whispering gently in your ear, Go ahead, just give this gather at the table thing a try.
I packed up Bread & Wine in my red suitcase and brought it to Jamaica, where I let its words wash over me when I woke up every morning to drink coffee on the balcony before the girls woke up. It was easy to breeze through each chapter, folding down the corners on the pages that spoke to me. A few of my favorite passages:
On travel and adventure: "We travel because I want my kids to learn, as I learned, that there are a million ways to live, a million ways to eat, a million ways to dress and speak and view the world. I want them to know that "our way" isn't the right way, but just one way, that children all over the world, no matter how different they seem, are just like the children in our neighborhood - they love to play, to discover, to learn."
On perfection: "What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd."
On taking a stand against Christmas madness: "The irony, of course, must not be lost on us: a season that is, at its heart, a love story - a story about faith and fragility, angels, a baby, a star - that sweet, simply beautiful story gets lost so easily in a jarring, toxic tangle of sugar and shopping bags and rushing and parking lots and expectations." This chapter, in particular resonated with me so much and reminded me of an old blog post I wrote called This is My Introverted Christmas Wish, though Shauna does a wonderful job of advising readers just how to let go of those expectations and live in the present moment more simply.
It's one thing, of course, to read encouraging words about food and community, nourishment and courage when you're on a balmy balcony in Jamaica to celebrate your brother's wedding. It's quite another to put those principles into practice when you return, it's March in Michigan, and it's still snowing and blowing. But Bread & Wine made me want to do just that.
In the weeks after I read it, I found myself returning to it again and again - this time for the recipes. In short order, I made Real Simple Cassoulet and Annette's Enchiladas, both of which are perfect for weeknight family dinners, and both of which were delicious and comforting. They've won spots in our usual rotation, for sure.
Next, my eight-year-old daughter wanted to celebrate her half-birthday. It fell on a busy school night, but, encouraged by Shauna's reminders to mark occasions big and small, I decided we could make the Simplest Dark Chocolate Mousse. It was indeed simple enough for my daughter to make with almost no help from me, resulting in a dense, rich dessert that reminded me more of my favorite pudding at Marie Catrib's here in Grand Rapids than any other dessert I've tried. No matter what you call it - mousse, pudding - it brightened up a certain March day for our family.
Then last week, I had the chance to really practice the gospel Shauna's preaching. It was our street's annual progressive dinner, and I was paired up with a neighbor I don't know very well for the soup and salad course. We've lived on this little block of older houses squished pretty close together for over six years now, and our winter progressive dinner is a tradition I cherish. It's a chance for us to gather during the darkest, coldest days of the year, when otherwise we're running as quickly as possible from our cars to our houses. I reached out to Emily: would she be interested in making a soup from Bread & Wine if I made a salad? She was. So last Saturday, I made the Green Well Harvest Salad and brought it down to Emily's house just before 6:00 p.m. Though we've watched our kids run through sprinklers together in my front yard in the summer and I often see her walking her dog, Olive, as I head out for my run, I'd never been inside her house. We talked about the story behind the beautiful painting in her dining room, about our children's hand washing techniques, about the way the soup tasted great but looked just the tiniest bit like vomit, and we made a hasty plan to ladle it into bowls and garnish it ourselves before serving it to the guests. (It worked: topped with bits of prosciutto, chives, Parmesan, and balsamic, it just looked like Winter White Bean Soup, not vomit-y at all.) Both soup and salad, I should add, were delicious, and our group of eighteen neighbors devoured both recipes completely.
Last Saturday reminded me that there's something irreplaceable about gathering in our homes to eat the food we enjoy with the people we enjoy. Shauna's gift is in making her readers feel simultaneously more vulnerable and more confident about doing just that. She reminds us that there is magic in opening our doors to let the world see our messy kitchen, that there is just as much connection to be found eating pizza on the floor as there is in candlelit dinner parties. She makes you want to be more generous with your invitations, more inclined to break out the champagne flutes for a friend's good news. She gives you permission to feel less anxious about the dust bunnies in the corner, less worried about making everything perfect.
"This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter. I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon. Begin with an onion and a drizzle of olive oil, and go from there, any one of a million different places, any one of a million different meals.
Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honesty and creativity. Feed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived."
This book, Bread & Wine, will make you want to be a person who throws open the front door, who shares a meal with a neighbor, who pours wine and stays up too late talking around the kitchen table. It will make you remember what's important. It will make you hungry.
I think you will. Bread & Wine is a collection of essays about a variety of topics, but I'd say it's mostly about relationships, community, travel, growth, God, courage, authenticity, and food. Niequist is especially interested in the way that food brings people together and nourishes them both physically and spiritually, so she's included a recipe at the end of almost every chapter. Think of a mash-up of Ina Garten, Molly Wizenberg, Anne Lamott, and Ruth Reichl, and you're getting an idea of the book. And though her writing is not as darkly funny as Lamott's and her foodie credentials are not as stellar as Garten's or Reichl's, what Shauna does have is the honest, encouraging voice of a neighbor or sister, whispering gently in your ear, Go ahead, just give this gather at the table thing a try.
I packed up Bread & Wine in my red suitcase and brought it to Jamaica, where I let its words wash over me when I woke up every morning to drink coffee on the balcony before the girls woke up. It was easy to breeze through each chapter, folding down the corners on the pages that spoke to me. A few of my favorite passages:
On travel and adventure: "We travel because I want my kids to learn, as I learned, that there are a million ways to live, a million ways to eat, a million ways to dress and speak and view the world. I want them to know that "our way" isn't the right way, but just one way, that children all over the world, no matter how different they seem, are just like the children in our neighborhood - they love to play, to discover, to learn."
On perfection: "What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd."
On taking a stand against Christmas madness: "The irony, of course, must not be lost on us: a season that is, at its heart, a love story - a story about faith and fragility, angels, a baby, a star - that sweet, simply beautiful story gets lost so easily in a jarring, toxic tangle of sugar and shopping bags and rushing and parking lots and expectations." This chapter, in particular resonated with me so much and reminded me of an old blog post I wrote called This is My Introverted Christmas Wish, though Shauna does a wonderful job of advising readers just how to let go of those expectations and live in the present moment more simply.
It's one thing, of course, to read encouraging words about food and community, nourishment and courage when you're on a balmy balcony in Jamaica to celebrate your brother's wedding. It's quite another to put those principles into practice when you return, it's March in Michigan, and it's still snowing and blowing. But Bread & Wine made me want to do just that.
In the weeks after I read it, I found myself returning to it again and again - this time for the recipes. In short order, I made Real Simple Cassoulet and Annette's Enchiladas, both of which are perfect for weeknight family dinners, and both of which were delicious and comforting. They've won spots in our usual rotation, for sure.
Next, my eight-year-old daughter wanted to celebrate her half-birthday. It fell on a busy school night, but, encouraged by Shauna's reminders to mark occasions big and small, I decided we could make the Simplest Dark Chocolate Mousse. It was indeed simple enough for my daughter to make with almost no help from me, resulting in a dense, rich dessert that reminded me more of my favorite pudding at Marie Catrib's here in Grand Rapids than any other dessert I've tried. No matter what you call it - mousse, pudding - it brightened up a certain March day for our family.
Then last week, I had the chance to really practice the gospel Shauna's preaching. It was our street's annual progressive dinner, and I was paired up with a neighbor I don't know very well for the soup and salad course. We've lived on this little block of older houses squished pretty close together for over six years now, and our winter progressive dinner is a tradition I cherish. It's a chance for us to gather during the darkest, coldest days of the year, when otherwise we're running as quickly as possible from our cars to our houses. I reached out to Emily: would she be interested in making a soup from Bread & Wine if I made a salad? She was. So last Saturday, I made the Green Well Harvest Salad and brought it down to Emily's house just before 6:00 p.m. Though we've watched our kids run through sprinklers together in my front yard in the summer and I often see her walking her dog, Olive, as I head out for my run, I'd never been inside her house. We talked about the story behind the beautiful painting in her dining room, about our children's hand washing techniques, about the way the soup tasted great but looked just the tiniest bit like vomit, and we made a hasty plan to ladle it into bowls and garnish it ourselves before serving it to the guests. (It worked: topped with bits of prosciutto, chives, Parmesan, and balsamic, it just looked like Winter White Bean Soup, not vomit-y at all.) Both soup and salad, I should add, were delicious, and our group of eighteen neighbors devoured both recipes completely.
Last Saturday reminded me that there's something irreplaceable about gathering in our homes to eat the food we enjoy with the people we enjoy. Shauna's gift is in making her readers feel simultaneously more vulnerable and more confident about doing just that. She reminds us that there is magic in opening our doors to let the world see our messy kitchen, that there is just as much connection to be found eating pizza on the floor as there is in candlelit dinner parties. She makes you want to be more generous with your invitations, more inclined to break out the champagne flutes for a friend's good news. She gives you permission to feel less anxious about the dust bunnies in the corner, less worried about making everything perfect.
"This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter. I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon. Begin with an onion and a drizzle of olive oil, and go from there, any one of a million different places, any one of a million different meals.
Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honesty and creativity. Feed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived."
This book, Bread & Wine, will make you want to be a person who throws open the front door, who shares a meal with a neighbor, who pours wine and stays up too late talking around the kitchen table. It will make you remember what's important. It will make you hungry.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Read Elsewhere: The End of Your Life Book Club
Excerpts from The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe:
"We found ourselves discussing the three kinds of fateful choices that exist in the . . . books: the ones characters make knowing that they can never be undone; the ones they make thinking they can but learn they can't; and the ones they make thinking they can't and only later come to understand, when it's too late, when "nothing can be undone," that they could have.
Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility - that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp. I think that's why we had all moved, at different times in our lives, to various foreign lands without giving much thought to it. If you stayed at home, you might not get the opportunity to go to that place again. But if you went, you could always come back."
*****
"No one in the family has ever gotten over (his) death. We talk of him daily, recounting stories and imagining what his reactions would be to new books and recent events. He remains for my family the perfect model of how you can be gone but ever present in the lives of people who loved you, in the same way that your favorite books stay with you for your entire life, no matter how long it's been since you turned the last page."
"We found ourselves discussing the three kinds of fateful choices that exist in the . . . books: the ones characters make knowing that they can never be undone; the ones they make thinking they can but learn they can't; and the ones they make thinking they can't and only later come to understand, when it's too late, when "nothing can be undone," that they could have.
Mom had always taught all of us to examine decisions by reversibility - that is, to hedge our bets. When you couldn't decide between two things, she suggested you choose the one that allowed you to change course if necessary. Not the road less traveled but the road with the exit ramp. I think that's why we had all moved, at different times in our lives, to various foreign lands without giving much thought to it. If you stayed at home, you might not get the opportunity to go to that place again. But if you went, you could always come back."
*****
"No one in the family has ever gotten over (his) death. We talk of him daily, recounting stories and imagining what his reactions would be to new books and recent events. He remains for my family the perfect model of how you can be gone but ever present in the lives of people who loved you, in the same way that your favorite books stay with you for your entire life, no matter how long it's been since you turned the last page."
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Read Elsewhere: How Children Succeed
I devoured Paul Tough's book, How Children Succeed, on vacation, dog-earing so many pages that it's clear I need to go ahead and return this copy to the library, then buy one for myself. Before I do, though, a few of my favorite excerpts:
"When we consider the impact of parenting on children, we tend to think that the dramatic effects are going to appear at one end or the other of the parenting-quality spectrum. A child who is physically abused is going to fare far worse, we assume, than a child who is simply ignored or discouraged. And the child of a supermom who gets lots of extra tutoring and one-on-one support is going to do way better than an average well-loved child. But what Blair's and Evans's research suggests is that regular good parenting - being helpful and attentive during a game of Jenga - can make a profound difference for a child's future prospects."
"The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained, is character. 'Whether it's the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was always the idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful,' he said. 'Strangely, we've now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get eight hundreds on their SATs, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they're doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they're screwed, to be honest. I don't think they've grown the capacities to be able to handle that.'"
"It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we know - one some level, at least - that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. As a parent, you struggle with these thorny questions every day, and if you make the right call even half the time, you're lucky."
"When we consider the impact of parenting on children, we tend to think that the dramatic effects are going to appear at one end or the other of the parenting-quality spectrum. A child who is physically abused is going to fare far worse, we assume, than a child who is simply ignored or discouraged. And the child of a supermom who gets lots of extra tutoring and one-on-one support is going to do way better than an average well-loved child. But what Blair's and Evans's research suggests is that regular good parenting - being helpful and attentive during a game of Jenga - can make a profound difference for a child's future prospects."
"The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained, is character. 'Whether it's the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was always the idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful,' he said. 'Strangely, we've now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get eight hundreds on their SATs, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they're doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they're screwed, to be honest. I don't think they've grown the capacities to be able to handle that.'"
"It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we know - one some level, at least - that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. As a parent, you struggle with these thorny questions every day, and if you make the right call even half the time, you're lucky."
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Things They Say: Books and Words Edition
Jemma, looking at a reusable Lululemon bag while eating breakfast one morning:
"'Friends are more important than money'? Pshaw!"
Me: " . . . . well, don't you think we care about people more than we care about things?"
Jemma: "No!"
Me: *questioning overall success as parent, person*
Jemma: "Mom, you buy FOOD with money, and you NEED food to LIVE."
Me: "True."
*****
Annie, talking about a book her teacher is reading aloud to the class:
" . . . and then it was time for Spanish, so we had to stop! so I don't know what happens next. He always stops at a really tempting part."
*****
Jemma, scanning the titles of the stack of books on my nightstand:
"Why do you have THIS one?" narrows eyes, points to How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which lives permanently on my side of the bed.
Me: "Why do you think I have that one?"
Jemma: "Humph. So you can be BOSSY to us."
"'Friends are more important than money'? Pshaw!"
Me: " . . . . well, don't you think we care about people more than we care about things?"
Jemma: "No!"
Me: *questioning overall success as parent, person*
Jemma: "Mom, you buy FOOD with money, and you NEED food to LIVE."
Me: "True."
*****
Annie, talking about a book her teacher is reading aloud to the class:
" . . . and then it was time for Spanish, so we had to stop! so I don't know what happens next. He always stops at a really tempting part."
*****
Jemma, scanning the titles of the stack of books on my nightstand:
"Why do you have THIS one?" narrows eyes, points to How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which lives permanently on my side of the bed.
Me: "Why do you think I have that one?"
Jemma: "Humph. So you can be BOSSY to us."
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Right Now
A little snapshot of July 2012 for me. Right now, I'm:
:: trying my hardest not to let all our newly-planted landscaping die in this never-ending drought, and spending a great deal of my time spraying things down with the hose twice a day.
:: loving night runs, zucchini bread, smoothies with fresh berries, hot tub conversations after the kids are in bed, Hendrick's gin and tonic (with cucumber!), watching the girls play tennis every morning this week, and our lazy afternoon today: art easel outside, books scattered everywhere, dinner in the backyard.
:: noticing that every single throw pillow in the house has been commandeered for doll bed construction projects in the upstairs playroom.
:: relatedly thinking that the tough thing about having a weekly babysitter at your house is that you can't pretend that this mess or that rotten tomato or that pile of laundry just happened. She was here last Tuesday; she knows.
:: cracking open a window in the living room so that the fairies can get in and spend the night in the elaborate house Annie and Jemma have spent parts of the last three days making. (Also sprinkling glitter and chalk dust around the front steps as proof that they came.)
:: loving that they still really, truly believe in fairies.
:: feeling grateful that the girls have been playing together so incredibly well these last few weeks.
:: trying to start keeping a gratitude journal - just a few short lines each night right before bed - and encourage the girls to keep them, too. (This has actually happened on two of the last nine or ten days, but! two is better than none.)
:: being amused at the phone conversation I had a few days ago where, when I called a source for an interview for an article I'm writing, I was told there was a "new media policy" and the source "couldn't talk to the press" about this issue. Gosh, am I The Press? I was thinking I was just a mom at her dining room table with a laptop while her daughters were at tennis for an hour, but I guess I sort of am. Hee.
:: feeling a little sheepish that two separate people commented incredulously on the stack of library books I was checking out this morning, one of whom was the librarian. "Wow! Going on a trip?" she asked. "No, that's just my normal." What can I say? I am a nerd. (In the stack: Mitten Strings from God by Katrina Kenison, Perfect Madness by Judith Warner, Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell, The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and a few more I chose at random and can't remember offhand.)
:: having the first, sneaky thoughts about fall, but still trying mightily to block them out.
:: trying my hardest not to let all our newly-planted landscaping die in this never-ending drought, and spending a great deal of my time spraying things down with the hose twice a day.
:: loving night runs, zucchini bread, smoothies with fresh berries, hot tub conversations after the kids are in bed, Hendrick's gin and tonic (with cucumber!), watching the girls play tennis every morning this week, and our lazy afternoon today: art easel outside, books scattered everywhere, dinner in the backyard.
:: noticing that every single throw pillow in the house has been commandeered for doll bed construction projects in the upstairs playroom.
:: relatedly thinking that the tough thing about having a weekly babysitter at your house is that you can't pretend that this mess or that rotten tomato or that pile of laundry just happened. She was here last Tuesday; she knows.
:: cracking open a window in the living room so that the fairies can get in and spend the night in the elaborate house Annie and Jemma have spent parts of the last three days making. (Also sprinkling glitter and chalk dust around the front steps as proof that they came.)
:: loving that they still really, truly believe in fairies.
:: feeling grateful that the girls have been playing together so incredibly well these last few weeks.
:: trying to start keeping a gratitude journal - just a few short lines each night right before bed - and encourage the girls to keep them, too. (This has actually happened on two of the last nine or ten days, but! two is better than none.)
:: being amused at the phone conversation I had a few days ago where, when I called a source for an interview for an article I'm writing, I was told there was a "new media policy" and the source "couldn't talk to the press" about this issue. Gosh, am I The Press? I was thinking I was just a mom at her dining room table with a laptop while her daughters were at tennis for an hour, but I guess I sort of am. Hee.
:: feeling a little sheepish that two separate people commented incredulously on the stack of library books I was checking out this morning, one of whom was the librarian. "Wow! Going on a trip?" she asked. "No, that's just my normal." What can I say? I am a nerd. (In the stack: Mitten Strings from God by Katrina Kenison, Perfect Madness by Judith Warner, Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell, The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and a few more I chose at random and can't remember offhand.)
:: having the first, sneaky thoughts about fall, but still trying mightily to block them out.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Read Elsewhere: Faith, Parenting, Imperfection, Story
From The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides:
From Blue Nights by Joan Didion:
*****
From the blog Superhero Journal:
From Seth Godin's blog:
"Everyone he knew was convinced that religion was a sham and God a fiction. But his friends' replacements for religion didn't look too impressive. No one had an answer for the riddle of existence. It was like that Talking Heads song. "And you may ask yourself, 'How did I get here?' . . . And you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful house. And you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful wife.'" As he responded to the essay questions, Mitchell kept bending his answers toward their practical application. He wanted to know why he was here, and how to live."*****
"As he took in the marvelous sights, the dusty Polo Grounds, the holy cows with their painted horns, he had got in the habit of walking around Calcutta in the presence of God. Furthermore, it seemed to Mitchell that this didn't have to be a difficult thing. It was something every child knew how to do, maintain a direct and full connection with the world. Somehow you forgot about it as you grew up, and had to learn it again."
From Blue Nights by Joan Didion:
"On this question of fear.
When I began writing these pages I believed their subject to be children, the ones we have and the ones we wish we had, the ways in which we depend on our children to depend on us, the ways in which we encourage them to remain children, the ways in which they remain more unknown to us than they do to their most casual acquaintances; the ways in which we remain equally opaque to them. . . . As the pages progressed it occurred to me that their actual subject was not children after all, at least not children per se, at least not children qua children: their actual subject was this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of aging, illness, death.
This fear.
Once she was born I was never not afraid."*****
"I do not know many people who think they have succeeded as parents. Those who do tend to cite the markers that indicate (their own) status in the world: the Stanford degree, the Harvard MBA, the summer with the white-shoe law firm. Those of us less inclined to compliment ourselves on our parenting skills, in other words most of us, recite rosaries of our failures, our neglects, our derelictions and delinquencies. The very definition of success as a parent has undergone a telling transformation: we used to define success as the ability to encourage the child to grow into independent (which is to say adult) life, to "raise" the child, to let the child go. If a child wanted to try out his or her new bicycle on the steepest hill in the neighborhood, there may have been a pro forma reminder that the steepest hill in the neighborhood descended into a four-way intersection, but such a reminder, because independence was still seen as the desired end of the day, stopped short of nagging. If a child elected to indulge in activity that could end badly, such negative possibilities may have gotten mentioned once, but not twice."
*****
"What I have memorized is my child's face at different points in her life."
From the blog Superhero Journal:
"The ways that you are imperfect allow people to connect to you and love you even more."
From Seth Godin's blog:
A true story
Of course, that's impossible.
There's no such thing as a true story. As soon as you start telling a story, making it relevant and interesting to me, hooking it into my worldviews and generating emotions and memories, it ceases to be true, at least if we define true as the whole truth, every possible fact, non-localized and regardless of culture.
Since you're going to tell a story, you might as well get good at it, focus on it and tell it in a way that you're proud of.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Read Elsewhere: Books, Human Nature, Weight, Appearances
"I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off on a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies." - Maureen Corrigan, Leave me Alone, I'm Reading
"Most Asian cultures see human beings as innately good, born perfect but then pulled off course by false beliefs, unfounded fears, and other delusions. The Judeo-Christian tradition that undergirds Western philosophy sees humans as innately imperfect, born with all sorts of problems (original sin, carnal nature, ignorance of God's laws) that must be rectified and controlled if we are to become worthy. From a Western perspective, setting the original self free is shocking and dangerous: 'Why, if we just act from a place of freedom, we'll all be pillaging and looting by nightfall.' In Asian psychology, pillaging and looting (etc., etc.) come from a place of delusion, from imagining ourselves as separate from others, so that our welfare and theirs are disconnected." - Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight
"None of us lead the lives our appearance suggests. We each lie in bed at night with our personal terrors as to what life could be, or about what life is like right now, and whether we have the strength to get through it. Clothes and money rarely can make that go away." - Deborah L. Jacobs, in Forbes Magazine
"Most Asian cultures see human beings as innately good, born perfect but then pulled off course by false beliefs, unfounded fears, and other delusions. The Judeo-Christian tradition that undergirds Western philosophy sees humans as innately imperfect, born with all sorts of problems (original sin, carnal nature, ignorance of God's laws) that must be rectified and controlled if we are to become worthy. From a Western perspective, setting the original self free is shocking and dangerous: 'Why, if we just act from a place of freedom, we'll all be pillaging and looting by nightfall.' In Asian psychology, pillaging and looting (etc., etc.) come from a place of delusion, from imagining ourselves as separate from others, so that our welfare and theirs are disconnected." - Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight
"Nevertheless, she is six years old, and she is so far below the average weight for her height that the pediatrician mentions it at each visit, and she doesn't want to gain weight. She's mentioned this a few times recently, but I've ignored it because I didn't want to draw a lot of attention to it---or more truthfully, because I didn't know what to say. This time I asked soooooo casually if the other girls at school talk about gaining weight. She said no. I asked if anyone else had mentioned it. She said no. I asked why she said she didn't want to gain weight, and she laughed nervously and said, well, she meant she didn't want to gain TOO MUCH weight.
I didn't pursue it any further. There isn't any point. It's not as if it's possible to rear a daughter who doesn't understand that this society expects her to be thin. I'd been hoping, though, for a longer time before she understood it." - Swistle, writing "Weight and Daughters" at the blog Swistle
I didn't pursue it any further. There isn't any point. It's not as if it's possible to rear a daughter who doesn't understand that this society expects her to be thin. I'd been hoping, though, for a longer time before she understood it." - Swistle, writing "Weight and Daughters" at the blog Swistle
Monday, November 21, 2011
Six Things Now
I keep trying to write some sort of coherent post, but it's not happening. (This afternoon, while I had a little time to write because Jemma was napping? I took a nap. So.) Instead, this:
1. Sometimes I wonder why the moms I know seem to be just as busy and frantic as our own mothers were. At first glance, this seems to not make sense, since my generation tends toward fewer children, more modern conveniences, and more helpful spouses. Do you know what I think is causing this problem? EXERCISE. We do it, our mothers generally did not. And it takes up a lot of time, what with the working out and the post-workout showering and the workout-clothes laundry. I am not sad about this, I am just saying.
2. Things I have been requested to bring to Thanksgiving: rolls, cranberry sauce. I have never made either thing, but I do love a challenge in the kitchen, so there are two bags of cranberries and a new 3-lb. bag of flour in my kitchen right now.
3. I have read Three! Books! In a Row! to which I have assigned the rare-but-special five-star rating on Goodreads. They are Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Go. Read them. And tell me what I should read next.
4. I have begun stockpiling Christmas gifts for the girls in the basement since our house is old and lacks sufficient closet space. I warned Jason the minute that I started this: "I'm putting Christmas presents downstairs. Don't let the girls down there from now on." I didn't think it would be a problem, because the basment is unfinished and creepy and the only things down there are the Costco overflow groceries, the laundry room, Jason's "workbench," and the hundreds of empty beer bottles our teetotaling Baptist-ish contractor was able to see multiple times last week.
On Sunday, I took the girls down to the track to do some bleachers and sprints with me, which they participated in surprisingly well, and when we returned home I promised them Gatorade. I left the kitchen briefly and when I came back, Jason was alone in the kitchen while the soup simmered on the stove.
"Where are the girls?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Getting Gatorade in the basement," he said, and I ran down the stairs like a crazy person, where I found the girls adorably trying to figure out how to un-shrink-wrap the case of Costco Gatorade . . . about three feet away from a giant shopping bag full of most of their unwrapped Christmas presents. Luckily they had no idea, but you can bet someone got the stinkeye when the three of us emerged from the basement.
5. I went to Trader Joe's last weekend and have since become obsessed with their mini peppermint waffle cookies. I bought two packages. I ate the last cookie today. (Today, with its napping and its cookie-eating, really makes me look good, no?) Why, WHY can there not be a Trader Joe's in this town?
6. Jemma celebrated Thanksgiving today at preschool with a "feast." She now knows a fair amount about the Wampanoag Indians and how to make butter from cream by shaking it while you dance. She was able to choose her Native American name, which is Princess Love Dancing Sunlight.
1. Sometimes I wonder why the moms I know seem to be just as busy and frantic as our own mothers were. At first glance, this seems to not make sense, since my generation tends toward fewer children, more modern conveniences, and more helpful spouses. Do you know what I think is causing this problem? EXERCISE. We do it, our mothers generally did not. And it takes up a lot of time, what with the working out and the post-workout showering and the workout-clothes laundry. I am not sad about this, I am just saying.
2. Things I have been requested to bring to Thanksgiving: rolls, cranberry sauce. I have never made either thing, but I do love a challenge in the kitchen, so there are two bags of cranberries and a new 3-lb. bag of flour in my kitchen right now.
3. I have read Three! Books! In a Row! to which I have assigned the rare-but-special five-star rating on Goodreads. They are Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Go. Read them. And tell me what I should read next.
4. I have begun stockpiling Christmas gifts for the girls in the basement since our house is old and lacks sufficient closet space. I warned Jason the minute that I started this: "I'm putting Christmas presents downstairs. Don't let the girls down there from now on." I didn't think it would be a problem, because the basment is unfinished and creepy and the only things down there are the Costco overflow groceries, the laundry room, Jason's "workbench," and the hundreds of empty beer bottles our teetotaling Baptist-ish contractor was able to see multiple times last week.
On Sunday, I took the girls down to the track to do some bleachers and sprints with me, which they participated in surprisingly well, and when we returned home I promised them Gatorade. I left the kitchen briefly and when I came back, Jason was alone in the kitchen while the soup simmered on the stove.
"Where are the girls?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Getting Gatorade in the basement," he said, and I ran down the stairs like a crazy person, where I found the girls adorably trying to figure out how to un-shrink-wrap the case of Costco Gatorade . . . about three feet away from a giant shopping bag full of most of their unwrapped Christmas presents. Luckily they had no idea, but you can bet someone got the stinkeye when the three of us emerged from the basement.
5. I went to Trader Joe's last weekend and have since become obsessed with their mini peppermint waffle cookies. I bought two packages. I ate the last cookie today. (Today, with its napping and its cookie-eating, really makes me look good, no?) Why, WHY can there not be a Trader Joe's in this town?
6. Jemma celebrated Thanksgiving today at preschool with a "feast." She now knows a fair amount about the Wampanoag Indians and how to make butter from cream by shaking it while you dance. She was able to choose her Native American name, which is Princess Love Dancing Sunlight.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Girls After My Own Heart
Annie gets to check out a library book from school each week and at least half the time, she chooses a cookbook. Last week, she chose some sort of Betty Crocker Fancy Party Treats and begged and pestered until I took her to the store for the necessary ingredients to make chocolate cupcakes in teacups with marshmallow frosting.
We finally made them on Sunday night and ate the last ones after dinner today, which was appropriate, because they looked like nothing so much as little cups of hot chocolate with insane amounts of sprinkles, and guess what it did today?
IT SNOWED.
So we switched up our tradition of having hot cocoa on the first day of snow and had hot-cocoa-looking-cupcakes-in-mugs instead. I don't think they minded.
Jemma had the day off from school yesterday because of conferences, so she spent a chunk of the morning doing this
(and then spent the afternoon being a total whiner, just so we don't paint too cheerful a picture here). Annie, on the other had, had the day off from school today, so we ran errands together and snuck in a stop at the bookstore, where I gave in happily to her request to purchase her own copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It joins an ever-growing pile by the side of her bed, of which I am more than a little proud.
But maybe not as proud as when I catch this happening just before bedtime at night
or this
or this
on a Saturday afternoon.
After we'd been to Michael's this morning, and the bookstore and the grocery store, we had almost half an hour before we had to pick Jemma up from school. And since we were juuuuuust across the parking lot from my new favorite store, I told Annie we were going to go in. "It's beautiful," I said. "You'll love it!"
Annie disagreed. After learning that they didn't sell "things for kids," she insisted she was staying in the car. I dragged her in, and we spent fifteen solid minutes oohing and ahhing over the obscene variety of gorgeous drawer pulls and the floor-to-ceiling display of embroidered kitchen towels. We smelled every candle, touched every soft sweater, tried on sample Lolla hand cream, and chose imaginary Christmas gifts for nieces and grandmas and ourselves. There is a gorgeous bed in the middle of the store, and just before we left, Annie looked at me and said, "I want to sleep in that bed and live in this store forever."
We finally made them on Sunday night and ate the last ones after dinner today, which was appropriate, because they looked like nothing so much as little cups of hot chocolate with insane amounts of sprinkles, and guess what it did today?
IT SNOWED.
So we switched up our tradition of having hot cocoa on the first day of snow and had hot-cocoa-looking-cupcakes-in-mugs instead. I don't think they minded.
Jemma had the day off from school yesterday because of conferences, so she spent a chunk of the morning doing this
(and then spent the afternoon being a total whiner, just so we don't paint too cheerful a picture here). Annie, on the other had, had the day off from school today, so we ran errands together and snuck in a stop at the bookstore, where I gave in happily to her request to purchase her own copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It joins an ever-growing pile by the side of her bed, of which I am more than a little proud.
But maybe not as proud as when I catch this happening just before bedtime at night
or this
or this
on a Saturday afternoon.
After we'd been to Michael's this morning, and the bookstore and the grocery store, we had almost half an hour before we had to pick Jemma up from school. And since we were juuuuuust across the parking lot from my new favorite store, I told Annie we were going to go in. "It's beautiful," I said. "You'll love it!"
Annie disagreed. After learning that they didn't sell "things for kids," she insisted she was staying in the car. I dragged her in, and we spent fifteen solid minutes oohing and ahhing over the obscene variety of gorgeous drawer pulls and the floor-to-ceiling display of embroidered kitchen towels. We smelled every candle, touched every soft sweater, tried on sample Lolla hand cream, and chose imaginary Christmas gifts for nieces and grandmas and ourselves. There is a gorgeous bed in the middle of the store, and just before we left, Annie looked at me and said, "I want to sleep in that bed and live in this store forever."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
On Being a Grown-Up
I remember being around sixteen years old, thinking that the next ten years or so would almost completely determine the person I would become, feeling nearly overwhelmed by the Big Decisions I would need to make. I knew I'd have to choose a college, then choose a major, then choose a career. I knew I'd probably choose the person with whom I'd be spending the rest of my life, choosing a city in which to live, and choosing whether and when to have children. Then, I thought, all the Big Decisions would be made, and - voila! - I'd be a grown-up, aka A Person Who Has Made All the Big Decisions.
I've made all those decisions now (and am steadfastly happy with the choices I made) but it turns out, at thirty-three, there are still decisions - some big, some small - and daily I wish that I had become the grown-up who knew how to make them. I have no problem doing the hard thing when I know that it is right, but I do have a problem when it isn't clear what the right thing is. I've always known that one of my strengths and weaknesses is that I can argue both sides of an issue, which makes it hard to choose one path and stick to it confidently. The current crop of Life Your Best Life media (Oprah, Life Lists, a plethora of inspirational websites and magazines) inspires me to, well, craft a life that lives up to its potential, to abhor complacency, to figure out what the problem is and find a way to solve it, to innovate, to raise the bar. Trouble is, it's hard for me to know when I'm taking that too far. Shouldn't I at some point just be grateful for the life as it is, or should I constantly be using my energy to improve it? I CAN ARGUE BOTH SIDES.
We were at the beach today, which is really the only place to be when the dashboard weather looks like so:
and I was having a version of this conversation with a smart friend, who agreed that there is a fine line between wanting your life to be as ideal as possible and being the kind of person who always wants more, more, more. Then, on the way home in the car - after hours of swimming and beach baseball and juice boxes and Doritos and Pronto Pups and ice cream and just one more Pronto Pup - Annie was complaining about the heat. The air conditioning was going full blast, though it was taking a little while to cool the car down, and she couldn't stop talking about it. It was so hot! It was so uncomfortable! It was so hot that it required a low-grade whine to emanate from the backseat and mingle with the noise of The Princess and the Frog. At which point I heard my own voice share this bit of wisdom:
"You have a great, lucky life and you just had a super-fun day. Now stop finding the one small thing that nobody can help, and just be happy."
Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I knew it was advice I needed to hear myself. We came home, showered, put exhausted children to bed, and sat on the couch drinking a glass of red wine and talking about the never-ending decisions that are part and parcel of life as a grown-up, and I felt more sure that, no matter what we decide to do about this or that, I will be happy, because life is great and we just had a super-fun day.
I've made all those decisions now (and am steadfastly happy with the choices I made) but it turns out, at thirty-three, there are still decisions - some big, some small - and daily I wish that I had become the grown-up who knew how to make them. I have no problem doing the hard thing when I know that it is right, but I do have a problem when it isn't clear what the right thing is. I've always known that one of my strengths and weaknesses is that I can argue both sides of an issue, which makes it hard to choose one path and stick to it confidently. The current crop of Life Your Best Life media (Oprah, Life Lists, a plethora of inspirational websites and magazines) inspires me to, well, craft a life that lives up to its potential, to abhor complacency, to figure out what the problem is and find a way to solve it, to innovate, to raise the bar. Trouble is, it's hard for me to know when I'm taking that too far. Shouldn't I at some point just be grateful for the life as it is, or should I constantly be using my energy to improve it? I CAN ARGUE BOTH SIDES.
We were at the beach today, which is really the only place to be when the dashboard weather looks like so:
and I was having a version of this conversation with a smart friend, who agreed that there is a fine line between wanting your life to be as ideal as possible and being the kind of person who always wants more, more, more. Then, on the way home in the car - after hours of swimming and beach baseball and juice boxes and Doritos and Pronto Pups and ice cream and just one more Pronto Pup - Annie was complaining about the heat. The air conditioning was going full blast, though it was taking a little while to cool the car down, and she couldn't stop talking about it. It was so hot! It was so uncomfortable! It was so hot that it required a low-grade whine to emanate from the backseat and mingle with the noise of The Princess and the Frog. At which point I heard my own voice share this bit of wisdom:
"You have a great, lucky life and you just had a super-fun day. Now stop finding the one small thing that nobody can help, and just be happy."
Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I knew it was advice I needed to hear myself. We came home, showered, put exhausted children to bed, and sat on the couch drinking a glass of red wine and talking about the never-ending decisions that are part and parcel of life as a grown-up, and I felt more sure that, no matter what we decide to do about this or that, I will be happy, because life is great and we just had a super-fun day.
"This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: one one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn't, who have pushed through to become real live adults.
And then there's the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or to high school even, with all their might. They've stayed in jobs they hate because they're too scared to get another one. They've stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don't want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don't do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.
Don't be like that. Don't get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don't lose yourself at happy hour, but don't lose yourself on the corporate latter either.
Stop every once in a while to go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I'm living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I'm spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that's keeping me from moving forward? . . .
Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don't spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don't get stuck in the past, and don't try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven't yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life's path."-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Redemption
Spring break redeemed itself a little bit today, thanks to:
-a running partner whose nice husband was willing to watch my two still-jammied kids for an hour so we could run the lake first thing this morning and who cooked us up egg-white omelets and toast when we came back in the door.
-the girls spending nearly an hour cozied up in Annie's bed, reading to each other.
-my parents coming over for lunch, then all walking to get ice cream at Jersey Junction after.
-Jemma riding her new, big-girl bike with training wheels all around the town.
-sunshine and sixty-degree-temperatures this afternoon, allowing the kids to run wild with neighbors right up until dinnertime.
-windows open, birds chirping as I lie in bed typing this.
-Jemma's newfound love of skipping, which she does literally any time she needs to get from A to B.
-a stack of delicious books on the nightstand right now, including Tina Fey's new memoir, Bossypants, my favorite chapter of which so far has been the one about her father and which includes this excerpt:
-a running partner whose nice husband was willing to watch my two still-jammied kids for an hour so we could run the lake first thing this morning and who cooked us up egg-white omelets and toast when we came back in the door.
-the girls spending nearly an hour cozied up in Annie's bed, reading to each other.
-my parents coming over for lunch, then all walking to get ice cream at Jersey Junction after.
-Jemma riding her new, big-girl bike with training wheels all around the town.
-sunshine and sixty-degree-temperatures this afternoon, allowing the kids to run wild with neighbors right up until dinnertime.
-windows open, birds chirping as I lie in bed typing this.
-Jemma's newfound love of skipping, which she does literally any time she needs to get from A to B.
-a stack of delicious books on the nightstand right now, including Tina Fey's new memoir, Bossypants, my favorite chapter of which so far has been the one about her father and which includes this excerpt:
"How can I give (my daughter) what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law . . . When I was a kid there was a TV interstitial during Saturday morning cartoons with a song that went like this: 'The most important person in the whole wide world is you, and you hardly even know you. / You're the most important person!' Is this not the absolute worst thing you could instill in a child? They're the most important person? In the world? That's what they already think. You need to teach them the opposite. They need to be a little afraid of what will happen if they lose the top of their Grizzly Adams thermos."
Monday, February 21, 2011
And Then
And then I took Jemma to the doctor this morning and found out two things, both somewhat alarming.
Thing One: Jemma has pneumonia-ish. The doc wasn't positive, but definitely heard some things going on in her lungs that didn't sound great, plus seemed fairly impressed with the horrid sound of Jemma's cough and the weekend I described. So Jemma's currently on Zithromax and a steady diet of movies, coloring, and yogurt-eating, which unfortunately did not stop the anticipated side-effect of the Zithromax from kicking in just after dinner tonight.
Thing Two: Jemma weighed 24 pounds on the doctor's office scale. Now, a month or so ago at her well-child appointment, Jemma weighed 31 pounds on a (different) doctor's office scale. To be honest, 31 pounds seemed on the high side for her; she's usually 28 or so when she steps her wet little body on the scale at the gym, post-pool. BUT EVEN SO. This means that, in the course of the last month, between the "I-don't-like-French-toast" in Jamaica and the four-day sickness last weekend, she has lost about four pounds, bringing her weight to that of a hearty 18-month-old.
I bought Ensure at Target tonight and will take your advice in the comments below.
*****
I started reading Just Kids by Patti Smith this weekend. I'd heard part of a Fresh Air interview with Smith months ago and was intrigued enough to grab the book off the library shelf the last time I was there. My first impressions are that Smith and Mapplethorpe lived during a very interesting moment in American history (NYC art scene in the 60's), but that Smith's words don't do justice to the events they experienced. Her writing style reminds me of nothing so much as the way my second-graders used to spin their tales during weekly Writer's Workshop, beginning every new paragraph with "And then . . ."
I had to have an intervention with my second-graders one day. I wrote the word "then" on the whiteboard, drew a big X over it, and held a brainstorming session to come up with other transitional prepositions. We banned the word "then" from their writing.
This was especially on my mind tonight when, during dinner, I had to endure Annie's re-telling of today's episode of Word Girl. It's her favorite show ("Word Girl's my favorite! I never miss Word Girl!") for reasons I can't really fathom (a monkey named Captain Huggie-Pants?), and tonight I sat bleakly through what might have been the longest, most non-sensical plot summary ever:
Her voice faded in and out as I coached myself silently to maintain eye contact and make appropriate facial expressions throughout, thinking the whole time that I really need to track down a chart I remember reading long ago (by Swistle?) that gives points to parents for enduring various annoying parenting tasks, one of which was being forced to listen to the plot of a show or movie. (Anyone? CBHM?)
After dinner, and after Jason called five minutes after the time he had said he'd be home to say he was "on his way" (this did not go over particularly well), and after I'd given the girls their baths and let them draw all over the tub with bath crayon, I fled to Target. (For the Ensure. Also: coffee creamer, La Croix, snacks and activities for our upcoming train trip, and cute dollar bin thank-you notes.) And there, on an end-cap in the books section, was the paperback of Just Kids - with a little "National Book Award" sticker on it!
What? Patti Smith writes the grown-up, artsy, rock-star version of "And Then" and she gets a National Book Award for it? Because that's what it reads like so far. So far, it's
I mean, I know it was the sixties, but COME ON. I am still reading it, though, because I think she's going to meet Andy Warhol, and then it might get good.
Thing One: Jemma has pneumonia-ish. The doc wasn't positive, but definitely heard some things going on in her lungs that didn't sound great, plus seemed fairly impressed with the horrid sound of Jemma's cough and the weekend I described. So Jemma's currently on Zithromax and a steady diet of movies, coloring, and yogurt-eating, which unfortunately did not stop the anticipated side-effect of the Zithromax from kicking in just after dinner tonight.
Thing Two: Jemma weighed 24 pounds on the doctor's office scale. Now, a month or so ago at her well-child appointment, Jemma weighed 31 pounds on a (different) doctor's office scale. To be honest, 31 pounds seemed on the high side for her; she's usually 28 or so when she steps her wet little body on the scale at the gym, post-pool. BUT EVEN SO. This means that, in the course of the last month, between the "I-don't-like-French-toast" in Jamaica and the four-day sickness last weekend, she has lost about four pounds, bringing her weight to that of a hearty 18-month-old.
I bought Ensure at Target tonight and will take your advice in the comments below.
*****
I started reading Just Kids by Patti Smith this weekend. I'd heard part of a Fresh Air interview with Smith months ago and was intrigued enough to grab the book off the library shelf the last time I was there. My first impressions are that Smith and Mapplethorpe lived during a very interesting moment in American history (NYC art scene in the 60's), but that Smith's words don't do justice to the events they experienced. Her writing style reminds me of nothing so much as the way my second-graders used to spin their tales during weekly Writer's Workshop, beginning every new paragraph with "And then . . ."
I had to have an intervention with my second-graders one day. I wrote the word "then" on the whiteboard, drew a big X over it, and held a brainstorming session to come up with other transitional prepositions. We banned the word "then" from their writing.
This was especially on my mind tonight when, during dinner, I had to endure Annie's re-telling of today's episode of Word Girl. It's her favorite show ("Word Girl's my favorite! I never miss Word Girl!") for reasons I can't really fathom (a monkey named Captain Huggie-Pants?), and tonight I sat bleakly through what might have been the longest, most non-sensical plot summary ever:
"So, Mom? On Word Girl? OK, there was a boy named Toby. He had this robot? And the robot's arm . . . and then Toby had a DREAM that this girl was trying to . . . and then there was a bad guy trying to rob a bank but . . ."
Her voice faded in and out as I coached myself silently to maintain eye contact and make appropriate facial expressions throughout, thinking the whole time that I really need to track down a chart I remember reading long ago (by Swistle?) that gives points to parents for enduring various annoying parenting tasks, one of which was being forced to listen to the plot of a show or movie. (Anyone? CBHM?)
After dinner, and after Jason called five minutes after the time he had said he'd be home to say he was "on his way" (this did not go over particularly well), and after I'd given the girls their baths and let them draw all over the tub with bath crayon, I fled to Target. (For the Ensure. Also: coffee creamer, La Croix, snacks and activities for our upcoming train trip, and cute dollar bin thank-you notes.) And there, on an end-cap in the books section, was the paperback of Just Kids - with a little "National Book Award" sticker on it!
What? Patti Smith writes the grown-up, artsy, rock-star version of "And Then" and she gets a National Book Award for it? Because that's what it reads like so far. So far, it's
"One day, Robert and I moved into a sleazy hotel and got lice. And then we moved into the Chelsea Hotel and met famous people. And then Robert thought it seemed okay to have sex with male prostitutes and get gonorrhea and give it to me! And I didn't really mind. And then I took Janis Joplin back to her room. And then I had a boyfriend who had sex for money to support his heroin habit. And then I wrote some poems . . ."
I mean, I know it was the sixties, but COME ON. I am still reading it, though, because I think she's going to meet Andy Warhol, and then it might get good.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Bookworm
It was so good to be back with my little ones today. We hung out at the house for a while this morning (and they tried on the new 80's-style clothes I brought back from Chicago for them) and went to the park for a while before lunch, happy to play in the (finally!) non-humid weather. We spent the afternoon at Connie's in-law's lake and the kids tired themselves right out catching minnows, floating on and diving off of rafts, eating ice cream cones, making sand houses, and splashing in the warm water. The girls were exhausted when we came back in the door at 5:30, so we did baths before I fed them dinner and read books on the couch before a very early bedtime. I am so conscious that we have only a few more weeks of these laid-back, sunshiney, spontaneous days; I'm seizing the chance to be out in the water and the warmth every time it's possible.
Because of the very early bedtime, Annie had already been tucked in her room for about half an hour before Jason came home from a post-work meeting. I'd promised her that he'd go in and give her a kiss when he got home, thinking she'd be sleeping anyway and never know the difference. But Jason really did go in to kiss her sleeping forehead and instead he found her propped up on her back in bed, reading Little Bear, eyes half-closed from drowsiness. She reads all the time now: Magic School Bus, Henry and Mudge, Ramona and Her Father, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, Fancy Nancy Sees Stars. Neither one of us had the heart (or the inclination, actually) to tell her to put the book away and go to sleep. Staying up past your bedtime reading in bed is the kind of familiar vice I'm going to count as a virtue, and cross my fingers that she's still doing it thirty years from now, like her mommy.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Thirty-Two
"She had just learned that afternoon that she was pregnant . . . She was twenty-five then. How can she be seventy-nine now? It occurs to her that she thought she would always be . . . oh, thirty-two. She would grow older, but she would be thirty-two. She could be ninety, but she would still be thirty-two; and she would set the table and all her family would come when she called, the children bumping into one another as they came through the kitchen door . . ."
That's from Ordinary Life: A Love Story by Elizabeth Berg. I read it while I was lying by the pool in Hawaii, and it brought tears to my eyes. Suddenly, painfully, and probably especially since I was so far away from my children at the moment I read those words, I had an awful sense of how soon I am going to feel that way - assuming, hoping, that I am one of the lucky ones who lives to seventy-nine.
It's been a series of cold, gray days in the week since we've returned, and though there have been some definite high points (my 10-year Hope reunion, another hilarious 5-year-old soccer game, an equally hilarious book club meeting), I'm ashamed to say that I'm a little depressed. A little . . . slow. A little too aware of how immediately I'm right back into the tedium of the everyday, of how, already, the vacation seems like a distant memory. How it's hard to picture my life being any other way than it is right now.
Yesterday, Annie actually spit in my face when I went down the sidewalk to re-re-remind her of the boundaries for riding her bike and scooter. Today, she had a little friend over in the afternoon and they spent two solid hours bickering and not-sharing. Jemma's begun doing this THING where she jumps/thrashes her legs up and down in frantic motion to threaten an impending tantrum and it drives me crazy. I can't quite get the rhythm of this fall. I'm one step behind with the house, the groceries, the non-stop flow of paperwork that comes into this house on a daily basis. Already, the skin on our hands is cracking and our lips are chapped. I need to get all the winter coats out, and I just haven't. I need . . . a vacation after my vacation.
I come back to that passage, though, and instead of letting it frighten me, I take it as a rebuke: to remember, again, that each cold, gray day is fleeting; to notice the high points; to realize that I will not, indeed, every be thirty-two again.
So I notice Jemma's smile of great joy and awe as we do The Hokey Pokey at gymnastics this morning. I make sure to record her idiosyncrasy of the moment: her inability to conjugate verbs in the past tense, and her creative solution of adding the word "did" in front of the present-tense verb. "I did eat that all gone." "I did give Annie her shoes." "I did fell (smell) that flower."
I go outside and take pictures of Annie riding down the sidewalk in all her no-training-wheels glory. She doesn't fall once. I curl her hair for her school pictures and walk her to school in the crisp air. And when she asks random question #4986 and #4987 ("Would I still be able to walk if I didn't have one leg?" "Would I still be able to walk if I broke my neck?"), I tell her it's complicated, but when she looks in my eyes and says, "Try to explain it to me," I take a deep breath, and I sit back in my chair, and I do.
I guess this is thirty-two.
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