TEN.

In the week during which the majority of my friends changed their Facebook profile pictures to the big red equal sign in support of same-sex marriage, my husband and I will celebrate a decade of our own marriage. As I scrolled through the sea of red tonight I couldn’t help but to think about marriage: my own, my parent’s, my friend’s, the hundreds of thousands of people out there who have been denied the right to marry the partner they have chosen.  I read a great article earlier today about parenting titled, “I quit.” And frankly, I wouldn’t be forthcoming if I didn’t tell you how often in my marriage those words crept into my head. Parenting is tough, indeed, but marriage is ridiculously hard work. Aside from being a mother, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it’s not because the person I’m married to is some sort of tyrannical bastard. He’s pretty fucking awesome, if you didn’t already know.  It’s just that when you get married, you join up with someone and your life becomes their life and your stuff becomes their stuff. (Frankly, I should be the one apologizing to Steve, because getting my load of shit by way of marriage is kind of imbalanced and unfair to him, let’s be honest.)

I digress. It just seems to me that if you love someone enough to be ok with taking on their family, and their weird issues (like how much they might like shoe shopping, or how they might not really like cleaning as much as they seemed to before you got married, or how much they really, really like a certain really not-so-awesome sci-fi TV show, or how much they might like pro-wrestling…it’s real, I get it) then maybe we should just shut the fuck up and let them marry each other already.  I know enough stupid heterosexuals who are out there ruining their own marriages that it makes me want to cry out for my gay friends who just want to have their relationships recognized as real and meaningful – and most importantly, LEGAL. I used to think it was the white people who made everything challenging and ridiculous in this world. Now I’m starting to think it’s us straight married people.

It seems to me that the root of this stupid marriage debate is people getting real. Who are we to say we have things figured out? Who is bold enough to say that they have all the answers? If you say you do, you are lying. You don’t. It’s the people who are bigoted and frankly just scared who will tell you that marriage is only for a man and a woman. You know what I think? Marriage is for anyone who is brave enough to take another person, warts and all, and make them part of their own heart. I know I’m no sparkling gem. And my husband, while he’s pretty fucking awesome, is also pretty annoying sometimes. By law, I get to take him or leave him. Ten years ago I took him. And I would continue to choose him over and over again. I just want the same for my gay friends. Farting and all, they should be able to have a legal relationship with whatever dummy they choose. 

art show!

Yesterday was one of those days where I reflect on my job and think, “I do some pretty cool stuff with some talented little people.” Yesterday was the first annual art opening for our preschool classes.  Last summer, I read a great blog post from a teacher/blogger whom I follow quite closely.  Tom teaches at a cooperative preschool in the Seattle area, and he is an amazing writer who sums up his work with children so eloquently that I often just shake my head when I read his blog, wishing that I had written those words first.  So, when he wrote about having an art opening for his preschoolers, I knew it was something I wanted to try and something that my students would love.  We are lucky enough to have a family in our school that owns a small coffee shop in the heart of the Waldo neighborhood in Kansas City. One More Cup was a favorite hang out for me even before I knew that the Neffs owned it, and it’s the quintessential local business in my opinion. It is cozy and comfy and a favorite spot to curl up with a latte and a good book (Ha! You would think by reading this that I had actually done that. I’ve not, but I always look with envy on the people in there curled up reading…one day I’ll do it, too).  Yesterday, it was the perfect location to host dozens of family members and many, many little artists – at our first CECC art opening! 

 The idea began, like I said, with an idea from Teacher Tom, but it soon developed into something much more.  We are constantly doing artwork in our classrooms. Daily.  Using different mediums, working on different canvases, working alone or in groups. Artwork in the preschool classroom is something that we did every single day without thinking much of it aside from the esthetic quality…until this year.  This year, my friend and fellow preschool teacher Adriane and I began to dig deeper to find connections between the artwork that they did, and the development of the children. What we began to realize is that we weren’t giving the artwork enough credit for all the things it was teaching the children. Social skills, language and cognitive skills, math and science, measuring and exploring cause and effect, fine and gross motor development. This list could go on and could be much more detailed, but you get the point. The hard part wasn’t getting the children to participate in the artwork, it was making those connections between what we were doing and the importance of what the children were learning. Isn’t that always the hardest part for a teacher? 

 Yesterday was the culmination of a journey we began back in August, and it was so much fun to see how excited the children were to show off their work.  Giving the public the chance to meet the little artists was a success! I’m lucky to have Adriane to work with, as she feels as strongly about teaching as I do.  Teaching parents and the community about what we do in the preschool classroom. Teaching about all of the connections the children are making in their artwork. Teaching that more goes on in a preschool classroom than crayons and markers.  I don’t think Adriane and I ever thought about this journey as something new for the kids: rather that it might be new for the adults in those kids’ lives.  We thought about it in terms of how we might show the outside world how important this experience would be for a four year old. I think it was a success.

The CECC art will be available for viewing and purchase during the month of March at One More Cup (7408 Wornall Road, KCMO) come see it!

valentimes

I spent yesterday wondering how or what I could have written differently in my last blog post. It bothered me that I set off such a firestorm of comments and I felt like I hadn’t conveyed my message in the right way. Even though I enjoy making people think and talk, I never intend my words to offend or upset people beyond that. That was yesterday...sleep offered up perspective and today my children are running around in their underwear (inside, of course, they've made a beach in my living room) enjoying the first snow day of the season. I’m done wondering what I could have done differently yesterday because, in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Today I’ve been thinking about Valentine’s Day and how much emphasis people place upon it.  It’s always been ridiculous to me, even before I married the guy who earns his livelihood in the greeting card business.  I think about Valentine’s Days past, where we would transform shoeboxes into mailboxes with tissue and glitter and stickers, and we would wait for children to place notes inside.  Later, in high school, I remember watching who would have a carnation delivered during 3^rd hour. It was always, in both cases, a popularity contest disguised as something different. I’ve never seen the point in using one day a year to profess your love to someone.  At least I’ve never understood being strong-armed into buying flowers or chocolates or even (yep, I’m going to say it) cards – none of which will last very long.

I’m terrible at showing my love for my husband in appropriate ways. I’m certain he will be the first to agree with me on this. I like to laugh and to poke fun and I rarely tell him in so many words how happy he has made me over the years.  A lot has changed since Steve and I met and in the 11 years since.  The past year or so has been particularly challenging for me. I’m not wholly certain why, but I know I’ve not been the best spouse, or even a very good friend at times.  And I continue to assume that he knows how I feel, even though I often do a shitty job of showing it.  It’s not fair to him, really.  I said last week that anyone who professes love over and over again on the internet is probably lying. I’m not going to do that here for a lot of reasons: mostly because I can hardly do it to his face without turning it into a joke of some kind. That’s just how we do things around here. I will say that it’s never, ever been a popularity contest for us. And I thank my stars for that.

these are a few of my favorite things...

Lately, I’ve had quite a time with anxiety and just feeling down. It’s not something debilitating.  In fact, it’s not even something that I was going to mention.  But today I went to visit my doctor and he made me feel so much better about my health in general that I decided to start writing down all of the things that make me happy.  Once I started thinking of things, I honestly couldn’t stop – what a great exercise, really.  I started by posting them as my Facebook status today, and when the responses from people started to make me laugh, or sigh, or just remember WHY I have such great friends, I just wanted to write more about it.

It’s really the little things, I guess.  I was talking with my Aunt Karen yesterday about how we are always looking for the next big thing to come along. How, even when we have amazing moments (the example we both thought about was sitting on the beach recently) we were still thinking about the next better thing that might happen.  I guess it’s just our American way to think about stuff like this.  So I started focusing about all the little things that I see or hear or smell each day that make me happy.  Things I often look over with the hope that bigger things might be on the horizon. 

I started a list.  I will continue to add to it – it’s simply something to remind me that there is happy all around me. I just need to look more closely…

The smell of sunscreen. Swimming at night.  A great glass of wine.  A snuggly blanket and a good book.  Scoring a new, bestseller at the library before anyone else.  Bright red nail polish.  Ludacris (please don’t ask me why he makes me smile every time I hear him!) Thunderstorms.  Seashells.  Clean sheets.  Getting dressed up for a night out.  Fancy heels.  Finding the perfect swimsuit.  Doritos.  Cheetos.  Long talks on the phone with friends. Long talks anywhere with friends.  Fart jokes.  I stole this one from my cousin Amanda: the phrase, “to the window! To the wall!” – makes me laugh every time.  Bacon.  Hot air balloons.  My writing project friends.  Preschoolers.  Old school R&B music. Full bookshelves.  The Jersey Shore (what?!) Cinnamon toast.  Coffee with real cream.  Black dogs.  Hats, in general.  Bridges – but not being under them, only going across them, I don’t know why.  Bow ties.  Naked baby butts.  Reading out loud to an attentive audience.  Boat rides.  My sister.  Singing out loud – REALLY loudly.  Road trips.  New blue jeans.  Fireflies.

I just realized that I could probably go on with this until I bored each of you to death.  It’s not my intention to do that and I plan to continue with this “project” of sorts.  I hope it inspires you as well. Also? Sadly, maybe? When I check my Google analytics and see that people are actually reading this stuff? That makes me happy, too. Thanks a bunch.

36

This week I had a birthday.  Normally, birthdays sort of bother me.  I spend a lot of time thinking about particular birthdays of the past: the one, at 16, where I hung out in a car until midnight with my sweet friend Amy so we could celebrate our birthdays together (hers is June 12).  The birthday I spent crying about the boy who had broken up with me earlier that day…and that was the one where I was skinny and hot, but also? Who does that? Shame on him. My 21^st, where I wore a shiny gold dress to a club called The Edge and danced in a cage and then fell down half a flight of stairs – drunk on Midori sours…seriously.  The thought makes me simultaneously laugh and throw up in my mouth a little bit.  The one right after I had Lucy where I drank half a beer and thought I would die – I was 30 and remember thinking about how people did BIG things for 30^th birthdays.  That day I mostly felt like a giant boob. My point is that, at 36, I’ve decided to not ever be bothered with that trivial stuff anymore.  I’ve decided this is the year I will take back June 11^th. 

This year has been one of the best years of my life.  Honestly.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m really happy with my work – I’ve found a happy place in teaching – or if it’s because my children are old enough now that I can stand back a bit and relax and enjoy them more?  I’m not sure.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve finally decided that this extra 20 pounds is really not that big of a deal.  I just feel like each year gets a little bit better for me, and that all the stuff I worried about when I could fit into that shiny gold dress doesn’t matter at all anymore.  Sure, I’m not that skinny and cute, but I’m also not that skanky and stupid.

I’m hoping that my 36^th year will include more traveling and less whining.  More eating delicious food and drinking really good wine, and less worrying about where those calories are heading.  More time spent with family living far away and less time crying about that family not living in Kansas City anymore.  My 36^th year will be about FINALLY getting started on my masters and not letting the excuse of kids, money or time get in my way.  It’s not a new epiphany…it’s just about finally getting off my own back.  Women are way too hard on themselves and I’m finally seeing some of that.  This year will be about loving myself more and criticizing myself less.  I hope that some of you will hold me to it.

reflecting.

Last year during my annual review and conference with my bosses, I walked in and cried.  Literally, I walked in the door, sat down and started bawling.  I was pissed, and hurt, and frankly, done with teaching.  Honestly, I felt like I had sacrificed an entire year of teaching for nothing – and it had sucked.  I didn’t expect to cry.  I really didn’t even know what I was going to say.  Maybe, “I quit”?  I’m so glad I didn’t.

Last summer, as everyone knows, because I talk about it any chance I get, I was a fellow in the Greater Kansas City Writing Project’s summer institute.  It was, quite literally, what saved me as a teacher.  I left the SI and went back to the preschool classroom determined to give early childhood education one more chance.  I was determined to harness all the creativity and the strength and the validation I got from the GKCWP summer institute and put it to good use in my classroom. 

I am telling this story because I just sat down last night to fill out my self-evaluation for this year’s annual review.  I’m happy to say that there will be no tears at this review…at least sad ones.  This year has been amazing.  And, I teach preschool…I have stories upon stories of things that have happened this year that weren’t amazing, but those stories are nothing in light of all of the good things that happened in my class this year.

Last summer’s self-reflection taught me that I owe it to everyone to stand back and let children learn without my guiding every single moment.  I’ll add my own little caveat here: I don’t do this as often as I should in my own home.  I don’t know if it’s because I have control issues with my own kids, or if sometimes, at the end of a long day with other people’s children, I just need things to go my way?  I’m not certain. But I will say that the Dinosaur kids have had some pretty amazing experiences this year.  I’m guessing most parents will rank field trips and special visitors as the top “amazing experiences” but I’d like to tell you what I think was amazing, if I may…so here’s a list, in no particular order:

We created jobs and each chose one daily.  We made a “helpfulness board” and our “kindness catcher” watched for kind acts that we documented and posted on our bulletin board.  We baked and cooked and ate lots of new and different foods. We were the authors and illustrators of our OWN stories – and we know what the authors and an illustrators actually do (!!!!)  We grew vegetables and plants and flowers.  We hatched chicks. Out of eggs!  We watched caterpillars turn into chrysalis and then butterflies and we set them free. We learned how to have gentle hands and also how to tell our friends about our feelings.  We learned when we need some “safe” time…if only everyone would recognize when they need those moments!  We painted with all sorts of different mediums.  We wrote in journals, we drew with crayons, pencils and markers.  We scooped and shoveled, and dug and sorted and counted and patterned.  We passed out lunches to each other.  We learned to sit in a circle and listen to a story together and how to guess what the story might be about and even what might happen next.  We were really LOUD some days, and other days we needed things to be quiet. We taught a teacher, who was thinking this might not be her calling, to hang in there and to absolutely LOVE what she does.

I’m not certain what the future holds for me, but this class of kids has encouraged me to be my best: every. single. day. And not maybe the best I could be, but at least the best I could be for that day, for that child.  And, really? Isn’t that what early childhood education is all about?

signs, signs, everywhere signs...

I have written before about my weird cardinal sightings.  As in, they are everywhere I go.  After my grandparents Bloom passed away, I began to think that the cardinals were sent as a sign from them – you know, just reminding me that they still had an eye on me.  I know, you might think I’m nuts. It’s fine.  I know the cardinal’s song so well that when I hear it, my eyes start searching for where the bird is perched.  A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad day with Lucy, I thought to myself, “I wish I had some sign that I’m not alone or that things will be ok,” and I didn’t even get that thought fully out before the most beautiful male cardinal flew over and sat right in front of my car.  A few seconds later, the female joined him.  I love moments like that, even if it was pure coincidence, it reminds me that there is more out there – more beyond the human eye – and I fully believe that people who have passed on have a role in those moments. 

Like, the time in Boston when my cousin Karleton’s widow and his son were at a park on a day not long after Karleton’s death (if memory serves it was Karleton’s birthday or an anniversary?) and his son Jackson found a UNC hat at the park that day.  Karleton graduated from UNC and then lived in Boston. What are the odds of that happening randomly? 

The day of my Grandpa Bloom’s funeral, my sister and I went to Loose Park in Kansas City to spend some time together.  We had plans to fly to New York the week after that, and as my grandfather died very suddenly, we decided to keep our original plan and to spend time with my Gram after everyone else had gone home.  So, that day at the park, instead of attending his funeral, we fed the geese.  My grandpa was an artist and loved to draw geese and ducks – and he had a song about being kind to ducks that we loved to sing with him.  While we were feeding the geese, a white duck came barreling across the pond at us and shot up out of the water to stand literally about three feet from the two of us.  He raised his wings up over his head and did a little dance for us and then went right back into the water.  Lisen and I stood there completely silent.  There were no other ducks around – just this one, and it was pure white.  A few days later, I went back to the park to try to find the white duck and it was nowhere to be found.   I still keep one of his feathers that dropped during his dance in a little box in my bedside table.

The other night, my Aunt Karen called with a story about a lost earring.  She told me she had to call me because she knew I would understand.  Apparently, she took a shirt off a few weeks ago and with it came off an earring that she loved.  She had searched high and low with no luck, until her eldest daughter put on a sweatshirt and out fell the earring.  My aunt had never worn that sweatshirt.  That happened right after a particularly difficult weekend for my aunt and her family.  She and I both laughed about how my grandfather had made it happen so she’d know he was watching out for her.

I know people might think I’m reaching a little bit.  That’s fine.  I guess I just think if more of us really watched what happens around us – really paid attention to the things we just can’t seem to explain – more people would believe in something beyond ourselves.  I don’t mean spiritually beyond ourselves, I just mean that I see things all the time that I can’t quite explain – and I like to think that someone out there, or up there, has sent me a little sign.  And, coincidentally or not, they often come when I most need them.

*PS: It’s been a long time since I’ve given myself time to write.  There is no better time than getting some sort of mystery flu/cold to lie around and write, right?  I would like to say thank you. Thank you to all of you who commented about Lucy – people I’ve never even met wrote some of the sweetest words to me, and my sweet Pa had some great words of advice and reminders about my own childhood.   I really, truly thank you.  Lucy has had a really, really good past week or two – she’s still not eating at school, but she’s not so terribly sad and anxious anymore, and honestly, we are so glad to have our funny kid back that we are willing to believe the rest will work out eventually.

the kindness of strangers

I like to think about the human spirit. You know, the things that make us tick. I write about it often, as you know, and something happened at our house this past weekend that reassured me of the goodness in people.  Sometimes, in this house, I feel like I’m teetering right on the edge of something.  Like I could maybe snap at any given moment just because there isn’t a clean swimsuit for Zoe in the middle of January.  Or because I decide to spend an hour cooking something specifically for the kids only to have them tell me it smells stinky.  Or just because it’s Thursday.  And lately I’ve noticed that I’m a bit socially awkward.  Probably those who knew me a while back will be as surprised at that little realization as I was – what happened to the girl who didn’t know a stranger and was out and about all the time?  Sometimes I just don’t know if I like people anymore.

And so, when my husband told me that he had invited his friend Warren over for dinner, I’m not going to lie, I was a little…well.  I was mostly neutral about it.  As I get older, I find the thought of meeting new people and the “getting to know you” chit chat just plain overwhelming.  Good Lord, I sound like a hot mess.  Anyway, Warren had been asking if he could bring us dinner – just because.  And I’m all, “why would anyone want to do that for us?” and in true form, I had to second-guess everything.  On Sunday, he did, indeed, bring us dinner.  It was delicious.  And all he asked in return was to sit and talk with us and enjoy our kids.  After they asked Warren about their mutual love of Iron Man and told him what zombies eat (brains, duh) and offered him multiple slices of chocolate bikini cake (or chocolate zucchini cake if you’re not three) the girls scooted off to color and we got to sit and chat – like real adults!  And I have to say that I’m so glad I didn’t say no to having him over.  It isn’t often that it happens, but once in a while you meet a person who is just plain good.  Not good for any reason other than just having a good soul.  A person who wants to come over and bring a meal, and then books for the girls – in both English and French, and then writes a thank you note. TO US.  It was a while after Warren left that night when I realized that the human spirit I like to think about had just slapped me upside my head and said, “HEY! Quit doubting me, lady!”

Getting Sirius.

This morning as I was dropping off Lucy and then driving to work with Zoe, I had the Sirius radio tuned to the ‘80’s on 8’ channel. I’m not going to lie, maybe my favorite part of the new car is the satellite radio – and I’ve not had a lot of time to listen to different stations, but this one is pretty awesome. As we drove, we heard Wham, Genesis, Dire Straits, Cindy Lauper and even Michael Jackson. I made Zoe sit in the parking lot at work so I could hear “Thriller” in its entirety – I mean, what’s the point of listening if you’re not going to hear Vincent Price’s laugh at the end? She was none too pleased. I began to notice that I knew most, if not all the words to each song that came on, and I began thinking about how music really does create the soundtrack to our lives in many ways.
When I was a kid I had an olive green radio – it had this terrible fabric that covered the one giant speaker, and it had all of these huge knobs. It had probably belonged to one of my parents decades earlier, but it didn’t matter, really, because it still worked and was the conduit between KY102 and my little eardrums. Somewhere along the line, I also acquired a large black tape recorder, and often I would hold it up to the green speaker and tape songs straight off the radio. Then I would play them back over and over and over again. Ahhhh, technology. My point is that my love of music started early, and my memories were shaped by music beginning around that time. I never really thought about it, though, until this morning.
Like, how when Keith Parrish broke up with 14-year-old me, the song “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was the soundtrack. Even though in my mind the song was about me making out with the first boy who ever kissed me and not about creepy ass Bret Michaels and his breakup. When I was 16 I became a Prince junkie. Probably not so much because I loved Prince (Calm down. Later I really, really did), but Tarek Thorns loved Prince. I can’t hear “The Arms of Orion” without thinking about that time in my life. The Cure’s Japanese Whispers provided the soundtrack to one Thanksgiving trip to Woodstock, Illinois to visit my then aging grandparents. I was maybe 16. It was probably one of the last trips we ever took there for a holiday and one in which my sister and I were equally emo and moody – my poor, poor parents. To this day I can’t listen to “Let’s Go To Bed” without remembering rewinding the tape (yes, tape. So?) over and over again.
Later, the Indigo Girls and Tracy Chapman would be the soundtrack to beach week after my senior year of high school, when I traveled to North and then South Carolina with my cousin Erin. I met a kid named Travis Bales, and boy, did that throw a wrench into the supposedly wonderful relationship I was having back in KC. Later, I rapped, I raved, and I techno-ed through the late 90s after going back to the same supposedly wonderful relationship. I did that until I gained some sense and left that ass hat. The lovely Ani DiFranco provided the soundtrack to that hot mess. I have seen the woman in concert more times than I can count and still – live or not – when I hear the first five notes of “Both Hands” I get teary – and then defiant. Man, I wish I could shake that woman’s hand for helping me through that time. And then helping me again when the next relationship soured, as I pretty much always knew it would from the start.
About a month after I met the boy I would later marry, he made a mix tape (on CD – it was the turn of the millennium don’t you know!) for me. He had covered the CD itself with a black and white photo of a heart. But not just any heart – an actual human heart. And while he never said anything about it, I took it as a sign that he really liked me. Turns out I was right. I’m not sure what all was on that CD, because I only remember two of the songs. One was A Perfect Circle’s “Three Libras”. One day, a few years later, I almost ran over Maynard with my car while he was walking on the Plaza – talk about a perfect circle of events. I digress. The other song was the Barenaked Ladies singing “If I Had a Million Dollars”.
I can name you a bunch of other songs that have had some impact on my life, but I realized today as I was driving that after I had my kids, the effect of music on my life has been much different – and I hope that can change. I have music I like and I have artists that I gravitate to, but it seems like the soundtrack sort of stopped all those years ago and that songs are more of the background music (the Musac?) of my life anymore instead of the soundtrack. But, never in a million years would I have imagined that Phil Collins singing “Throwing It All Away” would have sparked this.

a story worth revisiting

I rarely feel the need to write about the same thing twice. Well, unless it’s my children, myself or my mother. So, nevermind. I should say that I rarely feel the need to comment on a news story more than once. Today seems different and I have been glued to the television this evening. I sobbed and bawled watching the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. It’s honestly been amazing to watch. The stories of these men and the time they spent in that mine are really nothing short of astounding. That they were able to ration food, ration the lights in their helmets, drill into a natural water source, and, in the midst of such uncertainty, maintain their wits – or at least it certainly seemed that way watching the rescue – the future is bound to tell that story. My favorite story to come out of this so far is of the two men who were driving one of the trucks in the mine. I watched one of them (miner #11) get pulled from the mineshaft this morning before I left for work. These two men stopped to look at a white butterfly that they saw flying by them – 2000+ feet down. In a MINE. That white butterfly surely saved the lives of those men – as they were stopped to see the insect, the mine collapsed. If they had kept driving, they would not have survived. I have said before that I believe in signs and if that wasn’t a sign of some sort of divine intervention, I don’t know what is.

I don’t know. I’m pretty emotional these days. Maybe I’m way too invested in this story. I’m just so happy to have been able to watch this unfold and to share some of it with Lucy. The ending of this story could have been so different. Mostly, for me, it’s been a reminder to me in a time that I really, really needed a reminder, that people really are good. That, deep down, the human spirit is truly something phenomenal.

Dear Lucy,

It’s okay to be nervous.  You wouldn’t have been sprung from this body without inheriting that gene.  Go ahead and worry, but please, not so much.  I always thought that the one thing I never wanted my children to get from me was the worrying…the constant worrying.  And look at what I produced: a five-year-old who carries the weight of this world on her tiny shoulders.  It’s enough to make a mother cry, but a mother who has taken you to kindergarten one day and then pulled you out that afternoon to start at another one?  Well, my dear…one day I know you will hardly remember this time, but it seems so very important right now.  I spend nights fretting about you.  You seem to understand so much.  You always have.  But mostly, I worry that you’ll one day do what I’m doing and have sleepless nights about things that, in the end, are really not that serious.  We’re pretty lucky, you and I.  We have a lot of nice things and we have great family on all sides who somehow love us unconditionally…but I know sometimes it’s hard to focus on that. 

I guess these are just the challenges that moms and dads face: not ever really knowing for certain what the right thing is for their children.  I have friends with kids headed to college who say this never really changes.  Maybe it’s because I’m hyper-sensitive about mom stuff.  Maybe it’s because I see so much of myself in you.  Maybe this is just how it is.  I’m not sure.  I do know this: you are smart and funny and sweet and loving and you have a sense about people that I didn’t have until I was well on my way to adulthood.  You will be fine in whatever situation is handed you…I just know it.  You are going to be amazing in school.  You have the curiosity of your daddy mixed with my need to KNOW everything.  You are artistic and you are crafty and you know how to get along in nearly every social situation.  You can do this – even if right now you don’t know French and it’s confusing and even I question if it’s the right thing (and yes, one day you’ll see this, but right now I can’t let on that I wonder these things!). 

Soon you will be (as a friend told me today) parlaying the Français with no problems.  Until then, I’m going to stay up with you at night when you call me in to tell me about your worries.  I know how it feels to need someone to do that.  I love you so much little Peaches.

when death comes

We spent time today at the GKCWP talking about teaching and poetry with Glenn North, the poet in residence at the American Jazz Museum here in Kansas City.  Glenn was amazing and a wealth of great information.  He had us do a writing prompt based on the poem "When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver.  Here's what I wrote:

when death comes like a strong wind

when death comes like a headache, dull and fuzzy and only slightly uncomfortable

when death comes like being carried out to sea with the undertow

I want to step through the door full of clarity.  I want to see clearly for the first time things that I’ve questioned all my life

and therefore I look upon everything as catalyst for that journey.  where the reasons for my actions are clear and the actions themselves are meaningful, if only to myself

and I think of each life as remarkable. alone. sort of like realizing at last that I’ll never really know what’s going on in your head

and each body as a vehicle. a machine. a treasure chest.

when it’s over I want to say, “that was worth every single day”

when it’s over I don’t ever want to wonder what I missed

I don’t want to end up with regret.

georgia on my mind

This week I’ve been knee deep in suitcases, swimsuits and sunscreen.  We are leaving for a week at the beach and it could not come at a better time.  Tomorrow is the last day of preschool for my children – and for me as a teacher – and when we return I will start the Greater Kansas City Writing Project summer institute.  A week on the beach is in order, for sure.  Honestly, I wouldn’t mind packing to MOVE to the beach.  There is something about sea air that just calms me and makes me feel like a different person.  Thinking about it nearly brings me to tears.  And I have to be honest, and totally cheesy, there is something so magnificent about the ocean I can hardly wait to be closer to it. 

Starting when I was about 15, I spent a few summers in the gulf coast with my then best friend and her family.  We spent hours and hours on the beach, coming in only to eat pimento cheese sandwiches for lunch with sliced tomatoes.  At night we would have bottle rocket wars on the beach and in the water.  We slept in a loft-style room full of windows and to this day one of my favorite memories is of laying still as can be on a twin bed with the window and the shades up as far as they could go.  I can hear the waves crashing and smell the salty air.  At the beach, the stars seem to multiply and go on forever.  That beach house was completely pink.  Ceiling to floor pink.  Outside and inside it was pink.  Even the piano was pink…and it was perfect.  In the “kids” room upstairs was an old juke box that contained only a few 45s: Rod Stewart singing “If You Think I’m Sexy” and Dr. Hook and the Cover of the Rolling Stone singing “You Make My Pants Wanna Get Up and Dance”.  Why I remember that is beyond me, but I do.  I learned to smoke stolen Virginia Slims in that room, and at night my friend’s younger, more daring brother would steal beer for us to sip as we played cards at the pink table. 

I don’t know why all those memories just came rushing back.  That was certainly not what I intended to write about when I sat down tonight. 

I’m looking forward to hearing the waves while I sleep with the windows open next week.  I don’t care if it’s hot as hell, I get one week a year to do that and I will.  I am looking forward to leaving the stress of work and school behind for a few days, but mostly to watching my girls experience the majesty of the ocean again.  I’m going to be watching at night for the lights of the shrimping boats off the coast.  I know when I see them that I’ll feel like I’m home again.

for lucy bloom, on the fifth anniversary of her first day

Every year on my birthday, for as long as I can remember, my mother would say to me, “I sure am glad it isn’t (X number) of years ago today!”  I used to laugh at her, not fully understanding her labor joke. And then I had my own children.  My eldest daughter turned five today, and each birthday, for each of my girls, I’ve sat with them and reminded them how lucky I am to have them as my daughters, and that every day reminds me how happy I am that I had them.  I thought a lot about this today, and also about all the things I’ve learned in the past five years.  

We were sent home from the hospital with Lucy after spending two extra days there due to her severe jaundice from her fairly awful delivery.  I remember spending the first night at home in our living room because Lucy was wrapped in a “bilirubin” blanket – which was light therapy for her jaundice.  The blanket needed a three-pronged plug and our old house only had the outlets with three prongs downstairs.  We were so tired that it never occurred to us to use an adapter and bring baby Lucy upstairs with us.  At one point during those first days, Steve looked at me and said, (and I quote) “if this is how it’s going to be, we’re going to DIE.”  The good news is that we didn’t die.  The bad news is that having Lucy, and then her sister Zoe opened up an entire floodgate of other stress-inducing stuff for us.

Being pregnant with Lucy taught me to see my body in a whole different light.  I had always beaten myself up for weight gain or changes in my body.  When I was pregnant with her, it was the first time in my life that someone told me it was actually good to gain weight.  That’s what you’re supposed to do! What a change – and such a hard thing to grasp when you've spent your entire life trying to lose it.  More recently, I’ve become more conscious of the things I say about my body.  Complaints of “I’m fat” or “I shouldn’t have eaten that” are kept to myself or sometimes lost altogether, in an attempt to have my girls grow up without body image issues – at least until much, much later in their lives.

Five years ago today, I gave birth to a tiny human being.  I will spare you the details (you’re welcome) but suffice it to say that I was amazed and astounded at what I did.  I made a person (with some help, thanks Steve).  And she came out of my body.  I did that…and it still sort amazes me, even five years later.  Someone once said that having a child was like taking your heart out and letting it walk around outside of your body.  I’m certain I’m misquoting it terribly, but that is what having Lucy (and later, her sister Zoe) did for me.  I watch that child throughout the day and every little thing she does gives me an emotion I didn’t know existed until she came along.  I get angry when she’s had her feelings hurt, I get sad when she has a hard time at school, I get embarrassed for her when she tells jokes and kids don’t get her silly, wonderful sense of humor. 

Mostly, though, I have learned from Lucy and her sister what it means to love unconditionally.  Amy Tan wrote, in The Joy Luck Club, “I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.” Happy birthday, little fish.

a story

My story is still incomplete. A work in progress, if you will…but it is comprised of many, many moments that make me…well, me.  The days of my youth were spent trying to figure out who the “me” was.  I honestly, truly believe – without a doubt – that I only just started to know the answers. 

When I look back I remember deep orange shag carpet in the living room, replaced years later by pale blue.  When we arrived home from school, there would be lines in the carpet from the vacuum.  Today, I firmly believe that my mom would sit around ALL day long and just vacuum right before we walked in so that it looked like she’d done something while we were gone.  I remember a white Easter dress with a yellow blazer, a hand me down from my cousin Amanda, whom I didn’t really know until we were much older and we found out how much alike we are.  That dress came with a bright yellow hat and when I wore the outfit, I thought I was a star.

I remember sitting in the “waiting” room at Betty Tillotson’s school of dance while we watched my big sister’s dance class.  I wanted nothing more than to strap on her tap shoes and run out there…I bet I was no more than three.  Later, I danced until my knees ached and my toes bled and it is the best memory I have of feeling driven toward something bigger than myself.  I remember walking to the Masterman’s house two blocks away from my own, where you could create “experiments” with the lotions in the bathroom and where no one worried about messing up the lines in the carpet.  They had a cat named Nike and later, the biggest black cat I’d ever seen, aptly named Inky.  I always secretly wondered if Lucy Masterman was my real mom, as she was SO much cooler than my own. Maybe I just wished it. 

I remember making myself sick with anxiety about who might like me – at school, at church, in our neighborhood. I wish I could tell my 12-year-old self to straighten my shit up and realize how cool I was without even knowing it.  Or maybe I wasn’t cool, I still don’t know.  In high school, I learned about race by falling hard for the one kid who wasn’t sure he could be with a white girl.  In retrospect, it was for the better, but I learned a lot about myself and even more about how people relate to one another from that experience.  I remember thinking that my entire world would collapse when Justin Peck told me he didn’t want to go out anymore.  Which is pretty funny now, considering we never actually went anywhere.  That angst is still so palpable I can nearly reach out and touch it.  I remember riding in the backseat of my parent’s car to Woodstock, Illinois to visit my grandparents and listening to The Cure’s Japanese Whispers album the entire nine hours.  That album will always bring me back to plaid shorts from the thrift store, white t-shirts and old Chuck Taylors. 

My story includes two early 1980s Chevy Chevettes. One blue, one turd bucket brown…each more embarrassing than the next to my 16-year-old ego.  What I couldn’t see back then was how lucky I was to have a car at ALL.  I remember the feeling of freedom that came with driving.  And I can recall sitting in the driveway of our home with my sister after she had driven us home from school one spring day.  We knew my mother was lying to all of us, but that was the day we started investigating.  And when a mother tells such a deliberate lie to her children – much less to her husband – it is then that a relationship must change forever.  That part of my story led to a relationship with my smart and funny and amazing sister that I might not have had otherwise.  A relationship that I treasure and hold close to me in the deepest part of my heart.

My story includes boy after boy whom I tried to change.  Time and again I would sacrifice myself to please someone else, or just to keep the peace. My story includes a lot of other stories that I won’t repeat – things I am not proud of but that I would not change, as they are things that shape who I have become.  The one who told me I was fat and stupid, who left my self esteem so completely broken that I was merely a shadow of who I was before I met him.  The one who was good to me but just didn’t know how to love me without a mountain of drama to accompany that love.  I learned that the only person who could change the way that story would go was myself – and it took me far too long to figure that out. 

My story is about a boy, the best one ever, the one who finally just let me be me. Who still patiently lets me figure out who “me” is and never, ever asks me to pretend I’m someone different.  The boy who makes me laugh every single day, the one I can’t wait to grow old with.  My story is about two amazing, smart, beautiful and funny little girls who make me want to be a better person.  My story is important because I can and I will teach my girls all the things I didn’t get from my own mother, things that I needed to hear (and might still need to hear) and the lessons that I couldn’t learn from her.  I try to remember that the one lesson she did teach me many years ago does not ever have to shape who I am today.  My story is realizing that I am not so different from my kind and gentle father, that we share a passion for words and language and a knack for avoiding conflict.  All those years I spent fighting to be someone different, running from what I thought was so wrong, only to find that those are the very qualities that define me.

the best ship of all is friendship

Today I had lunch and hung out with one of my dearest friends in the world.  She has a five-month-old baby and we hadn’t seen each other very much since the baby, (or my babies, for that matter!) it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to hang out on a regular basis.  We lived together for a few years before I met Steve, and by far she’s the best roommate I’ve ever had – and I miss sharing her closet and her bed.  Before you jump to conclusions – go head, jump, why don’t you? – I’m a huge slob and when my bed was too covered in clothes, I would go sleep in Julie’s room.  I still ask her if she’d like to spoon every chance I get.

We were sitting on my front stoop talking and watching my girls get along for once in their lives, and I started thinking about the best kinds of friendships.  The ones where you don’t see each other for four months, but you talk as if not one day has passed.  The best friends are the ones who are friends regardless of your finances, your weight, or the fact that you would some days choose wine and cheese over your family.   A true friend will love you for all of those things and will not pass judgment when you talk about your marriage, your job or, when, in the middle of lunch, your daughter announces that her “butt is like garbage.” 

Our lives have changed immensely from our days at the LaBobbi, which was the name of our apartment complex – and also the entire reason we chose to live there.  We no longer have the luxury of time in our friendship. Time to shop, time to sleep, time to decide over brunch to get a tattoo that day, or even time to fight over who got the couch and who got stuck with the big chair during lazy Saturday afternoon TV marathons.  What hasn’t changed throughout the years are the things that matter the most – oh, and also that if I asked Julie to sleep in her bed, I’m certain she would scoot over for me. Her husband? I’m not so sure.

lucky number 7

Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Tomorrow is my seventh wedding anniversary, and tonight while we were getting the kids ready for bed, Steve jokingly asked me what happened to us.  We went from spending our days and nights in relative ease – hanging out, dining out, enjoying good conversation and lazy Sunday afternoons.  Seven years ago tonight I was stumbling dancing to “White Wedding” on the bar at the Peanut after our rehearsal dinner.  Tonight, we were talking to Lucy about pooping. I think it’s safe to say that our life has changed.

The night I met my husband, I was dragged out by my then roommates, Julie and Kathy.  They wanted to watch a Chiefs football game and I had just flown home from New York where I had been with family after the death of my grandfather.  I didn’t want to go out – didn’t really even want to leave the house, but the girls picked out the clothes I would wear and told me to get my ass in the shower.  The bar where Steve was bartending that night was a last resort for us – after we found no place to sit at our normal hang out, I wanted to go home and they wanted to try one more place.  I’m so glad they did.  Later that night, after I stuck green beans in my nose and stole a bunch of firewood (please do not ask me to explain this), I gave my phone number to the boy who would become my husband.  After our first date, I came home, shut the door, and announced that I would marry him someday.

I’m not going to pretend that our life is all wine and roses.  It’s WAY more wine than it is roses, but I made a good choice and I married a good man.  I hope that we are teaching our girls that love knows no limits, speaks no particular language, and accepts strange obsessions with old British sci-fi shows and comic books.  Love is being able to talk about poops – it’s about laughter.

blessed are the peacemakers

This morning I attended the baptism of several babies and children – one was the daughter of my best friend and her husband. Another was my best friend’s niece - the daughter of her brother and his wife.  I love the sacrament of baptism in the Presbyterian Church – I might like them in other churches, too, but I don’t recall ever attending one, so who knows?  One of the things I remember most about my own girls’ baptisms is the part where the minister says something like “…all this is for you – and you don’t even know it yet.” There is something quite touching about babies not knowing the depth and breadth of God’s love. 

I’m not attending a particular church right now – for many reasons – but I always get a bit choked up during ceremonies like these.  I suppose it’s the tradition and ritual of it that reminds me no matter how far or long I’m gone from church, some things remain the same. I find comfort in that, and perhaps that is way this morning I got teary-eyed while watching my two friends’ babies being baptized.  Perhaps it was also that I couldn’t help thinking about the sheer amount of stuff that these two families have experienced in the past year: divorce, the deaths of a mother, a dear friend and a grandfather. Long before this year, my friend and her brother lost their father, and I always get teary thinking about how he didn’t get the opportunity to witness these sacraments and how proud he would be of both of his children.

My friend asked us to be a part of this day so that one day we could help tell her daughter about her baptism.  I have trouble remembering what happened yesterday, but I will try to help her when the time comes.  And I hope that one of the things I can tell her about this day is how many people came together for her, and how many people love both her and her cousin.  There is something to be said about the way that babies bring people together and how, if only for one day, people put all sorts of things behind them for the sake of a child.   

During the sermon today, the same one where, midway through, my 4 year-old daughter says “Mom! This man is a talking machine!” the minister talked about the Beatitudes and about the peacemakers being called the “children of God”. It occurred to me that indeed, children are peacemakers for many families, this one included. 

selling myself...short?

Recently I’ve been updating my resume.  Initially I did this to submit with my application to the Greater Kansas City Writing Project (I got in, y’all – hooray for writing!) but when I was writing my cover letter, I started thinking about how hard it is for me to talk myself up.  I’m almost 35.  I thought I was far away from the days of insecurity and false advertisement.  I mean, I think at this age you get what you get.  I might have been able to sell you something different or flashy ten years ago, but not today…not only would you not believe it, I don’t have the energy anymore to pretend I’m someone I’m not.  I got really frustrated putting my resume together because for a potential employer, it looks on paper as if I’ve not really done very much with my life.  I’ve had two jobs that are worthy of noting in my resume – as much as I learned from bartending and waiting tables, I don’t think they have much to do with writing or who I am now in my life.  The rest of my time? I’ve spent much of it in school – man, UMKC should thank me for all the money I’ve dumped at them just for being a nerd.  Here is what I would like to share on my resume that I can’t or won’t:  I gave birth.  That should be worthy of note, I think.  I had a med student shove a foot long needle in my spine and then I gave birth. BIRTH…you know, birth. Twice.

I nursed my babies and changed their diapers and got up with each of them multiple times a night. One of my girls (I won’t name names, Lucy) didn’t sleep through the night until she was 13 months old. We were so excited when she finally did that I got knocked up again. I have cleaned up barf and poop and boogers and more spilled food and drink than I would care to recall.  I have read Goodnight Moon 1,368 times.  I can cook the shit out of a chicken nugget.  I am the mother of a child who has food allergies and because of that I have learned more about food and nutrition than I care to share. Seriously, I am a plethora of ridiculous food based knowledge. I can multitask like nobody’s business. I can talk on the phone while changing a diaper and cooking dinner and wiping a nose.  I wash my hands 68 times a day.  I make a good princess and an even better superhero. I can drive safely while two children sing at the top of their lungs to Lady Gaga. I can name every one of the Seven Dwarves, all of Dora’s friends (even that crazy taxi driving squirrel) and, sadly, I know what happens in every Disney movie released in the past three decades.  I can make a mean glass of super chocolatey chocolate milk.  I give fantastic hugs.

I started to get down on myself when I was looking at my resume and at what I considered my lack of experience, but then I just got irritated that I couldn’t figure out how to include any of the stuff I just listed without sounding crazy.  It looks on my resume like I spent much of my adult life unemployed.  When, in reality, I work for two of the biggest hard-asses around.  I’m going to teach them how to talk their mama up, because I should use my girls as references.