Happy New Year!

"A thing is complete when you can let it be." --Gita Bellin

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now." --Goethe

Tired

A long holiday and sleep interruptions have made for a very tired me. I'll write more soon.

Winterscape and Gladwell

It is undeniably one of the best December days we've ever had. It's a slow Sunday, we have a week of vacation with B ahead of us, and it snowed six inches last night. I think there's about 8" on the ground, more in the snowdrifts. It snowed all night--we stayed up late last night and just watched the flurry buzz around our house and swiftly cover everything in white. We just got back from a hike around our neighborhood. We walked over to our park two blocks away, where the Seattle skyline looks so sleepy behind the ballfields filled with kids and parents. There's a big hill there where the kids sled and snowboard all day. We saw a few neighbors and sledded for awhile, jumped around with some of the dogs, and stopped by our packed coffee shop for a cup of coffee. Cora just ate an enormous lunch and is sleeping soundly while B works on a video of her first year for our families.

Have you read, or are you thinking of reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers? There's a post on his blog about an article by David Brooks in the New York Times that critiques the premise of the book. (Gladwell wrote Blink and The Tipping Point.) Anyway, a book group I'm thinking of joining plans to read it for our next meeting. When I first read about the book on Amazon.com, I sort of grimaced. It seemed, from the Amazon review, to paint a bleak picture of someone's ability to be successful:

"Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, 'some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.'"

It's not that I entirely disagree with the assertion--it just seems rather unexciting, is all. It doesn't inspire a great sense of discovery. Why would I want to read an entire book about predestiny? Maybe because it all seems a bit too obvious. It slaps against so much of the stuff that I want to believe, or maybe it's just the idea that there is a formula for everything. I shudder at the thought--regardless of how true--that somehow we can break down everything--our entire life's work--into a series of equations and arrive at a common conclusion every time. And yet, if that's the case, the book smells a bit like the snow on our ground right now, a bit more wet and fluffy than the stuff of dense research and data mining--though perhaps much more fun to read because of that. That said, when I looked at his various blog posts, and a page on his site containing excerpts from Outliers, I thought maybe I'll check it out. It seems that his book analyzes the path to success from a variety of perspectives, definitely not just from upper crust beginnings. Like Brooks, though, I have this feeling I'll read it and feel that the premise "'slight(s) the centrality of individual character and individual creativity' by focusing so much on the cultural and contextual determinants of success. Successful people, [says Brooks], must begin with two beliefs--"that the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.'"

So if I believe that desire and dreams have actual mass, can together create their own trajectory, what does that mean? Do I need to decide if my beliefs have weight, or do I just need to believe and do? It means, certainly, that I am more of a follower of quantum physics than hard reasoning; despite how soft I realize it may sound to more data-driven sorts, that's where I'm at.

Where does the belief in dreams place me in Gladwell's world, or in the everyday bustle of the life that's happening right now while I sit and write? What I mean is, what role does belief play in our destiny, versus where we come from? It's a wormhole if you think about it too much, a chicken or egg dilemma.

Basically, a huge part of me just wants to say that it's not my job to be concerned about it; that's the role of people who measure and debate. I am not trying to be a scientist, I didn't choose that path. Gladwell didn't train as one, either. It goes back to my obsession with fragility; the existence of this book is one more thing that feeds my desire for escape, is like a little needle of (someone's definition of) proof that pokes at this bubble I want to believe in. Of course many people think dreamers are naive. But where would we be without them? It would certainly be an interesting exercise to set myself up in a library surrounded by all the research that defines success and how it is achieved. I could do a bunch of tests to determine my emotional and practical intelligence and my Mensa-ability. I could fill a desk with this research and all the things that point to a certain fate, whatever it is, and then I could sit in the midst of it and try to write a story. The thing is, would I ever set Cora down in front of me and show her a diagram of where she is coming from and the various projections of where she will be by adulthood, based on a variety of factors (how much she wants it, hard work, the number of hours of practice, when she started doing the thing she wants to do, etc.)? Uh-uh. That's the thing about analysis. It's one thing to look at historical trends. It's another to stop someone in the middle of their day and say, Based on where you are coming from, you are headed here.

I want to be more protective of ideas than that.

I haven't even read his book--ha! and I'm writing a post about it, how flimsy is that?--but it's the premise of it that makes me bridle--both because of a defensive fascination, and because I don't buy it. I'm not the only one, of course--the world is always full of critics. See, for example, this post: A Tipping Point for Gladwell?

I read an article recently debating political dynasties in America, looking, for example, at the Kennedy, Bush, and Biden families, noting the possibility that Beau Biden will run for his father's senate seat when he returns from Iraq. The article calls into question America's notion of democracy, and whether or not these legacies fit within that schema.

Is there an equation for success, and is it a permanent line? I should read Gladwell's book to find out what he discovered. Even if his thesis might an obvious one, I do think it's cool that Gladwell follows his obsessions and writes about the kinds of topics that get people arguing. I just wonder if I'm going to read his latest book, or whether I'm going to hold on to my candle in the dark.

Summary, with Snow

It's gloriously snowy outside, big fat flakes still falling and about 4-5 inches on the ground now. It's the second snowfall this week and I have the feeling we're going to be dumped on for the rest of the day. We went for a walk this morning up to our neighborhood coffee shop two blocks away, which was so full of laughing, wet, fleeced families that the windows were completely steamed over. B is home from work with a cold, so unfortunately he's not enjoying his day as much as I am, but it's still so nice to just have him here. Cora has been very clingy and cuddly lately with me, latching onto my legs so fiercely that I can hardly move about the house. But when B is here, she is happy to play by herself. She'll wander by to show us something, or just hang in her room, all cool and independent with her sippy cup and a book.

She's starting to talk, which is awesome and strange. Yesterday she pointed across the room and loudly requested WATER, and she shakes her head and says no, very softly so that it comes out sort of more like nao. She looked out the window during lunch yesterday and pointed to the trees while blowing through pursed lips, showing me that they were blowing in the wind. She says hi and bye-bye and turtle, and sometimes she says book and milk. We were at the Zoomazium the other day (this very cool play area at our local zoo), and she pointed up at the wall and roared at the picture of the lion. We have little conversations like this, a funny mix of sign language and animal noises and gesticulation. This morning she wandered around the kitchen making fish faces followed by the sign for fish, then giggled loudly whenever I responded with sucky noises.

It's officially been a month since I quit my job, which is hard to believe. There are a few major things that mark this month, which are:

I am writing every day.

I am nearing the end of a short story, about 10 single spaced pages into it... Actually, I'm not sure how many more pages I have to go, so maybe I'm not nearing the end. But still. :)

I have been hesitating to announce this because it is so gigantically monumental, but it appears that Cora takes two-hour naps. Who knew? Who in their wildest imaginations would ever think my 25-minute wonder of a daughter could sleep that long? But she has been doing it this week and it makes for much more enjoyable and productive writing sessions.

We are cooking whole foods dinners every evening, things like black bean enchiladas and potato leek or mushroom barley soups, homemade pizza (even homemade wheat-free dough, by golly), turkey chili made with homemade beans, roast chicken with gravy and potatoes... I am by no means a well-versed chef, uh, at all, but I am really enjoying the thought and preparation that goes into cooking. I've also made a couple of really disastrous meals which aren't so fun to wade through, including a bad Thai curry experiment with soggy vegetables and no flavor.

I feel like some long, gaping creative chasm is being crossed much more smoothly than I imagined when I started this journey. I am so glad I'm not hanging off the cliff without an extra Caribeaner, or lost among the tundra just looking for the other side. The divide feels less serious, is all.

Lest you read this and get one of those saccharine tastes in your mouth like after reading an overly-exultant holiday form letter, I should mention that there have been some low points, some questioning and wondering. For example, there was this night recently when I was out with some friends at a loud, busy, fun restaurant downtown. I hadn't been out on my own with a group of semi-strangers in, oh about a year. At one point, I looked around and everyone was holding their cell phones, showing each other their Facebook page. I am the most lame Facebook user ever. I created a page on a whim a year ago and have never updated it. I think I have 14 friends and no photo, I never write on any one's wall or send growing plants or winks or fabulousness of any kind. We were downtown and when I hurried away from the evening in order to get home by 8 to nurse Cora, I was driving our old car because I left the one with the car seat at home, the one I'm used to driving. I was looking around at all the BMWs and Porsches and lovely, shiny black Audis, and as I tried to exit my parking space, I wasn't used to the clutch so I stalled the car in the middle of the intersection. The light turned green for oncoming traffic, and there I was. All the writerly wisdom blew out of me. I was a stay-at-home mom in an old car, trying to figure out how to use a stick shift, cursing and yelling out the window, "I'm trying, damn it!" until I finally got the car started and lurched around the corner. I felt about two feet tall.

I was talking to B about it later, and he told me he thinks I am scrappy, sometimes too much so. That there's this thing in me that wants to tell everyone I could do it, too: I could work in a fancy building and wear fancy clothes and drive a pretty car. There's a weakness in there, a thing that wants to prove something. But then I get home and I put on my comfy jeans and pull my hair into a big mess on my head and nurse Cora and sit down to read. And I think, you know, that other me isn't as happy.

What I realize again and again is that sometimes your true self gets used to whispering, and the other world outside--the one filled with shiny cars and slick new coats, vacations to tropical places and fancy dinners out--talks much more loudly. It can even shout. There are a hundred things that, if you pause long enough to look at them, will seem much more tangible and attractive than pawing away at a story. Oddly, as soon as I get just a few blocks away from that me that wants to be another me, I want to bundle the real me up and take her to our dream house on the island. Feed her a homemade meal and a cup of tea and cover her in a scratchy wool sweater and a pair of slippers, and tuck her next to a fire. Don't get lost out there, I want to say sternly. Don't let the fire die.

So here I am, on my way over my little chasm, drinking decaf tea and looking at the snow covering everything in silence while my daughter sleeps.

Questions

We have a few friends who definitely have executive decision-making ability. Most of them are actually executives. Two that we know of, in particular, are so good at being decisive that I cannot imagine them questioning anything. And if they ever do wallow in a place of cognitive unrest for a tiny second, I'm sure one of them is schooled enough in the art of retrieval to quickly rescue them both from further descent. Not B and I. We are most comfortable in that hellish place called total indecision, that little place on the side of any country road called a muddy ditch. There we thrash about from side to side, lost in the muck and weedy tumult, and neither of us have the capability to do anything except drown. If one of us finally does figure out a way to throw in the towel and extract us from imminent and total implosion, we have to finish the whole thing with "That's what we're going to do. ....Don't you think?"

Yesterday (Sunday) was Cora's 1st birthday. We had been looking forward to that day for a year. It's just so symbolic to look at this person that you built with labor and sleepless nights and milk, from a tiny warbling infant into a rounded toddler with ideas and attitude. So we spent Saturday see-sawing between too many commitments (indecisive people have a tendency to spread themselves too thin, never being able to say No in a timely enough manner), and found ourselves up at 11 washing our floors and cleaning our bathroom in preparation for her party, while snow started to fall outside.

We awoke to three inches and an icy road, which under normal circumstances would have been thrilling but on Cora's birthday was actually rather heartbreaking because we knew it meant we'd probably need to cancel the party. I didn't take it very well and was grumpy all morning. When we finally decided to cancel the event, we then spent the next three hours wondering if we'd done the right thing. We'd peer outside at the road, thinking maybe we should call all our friends back and say, "Whatever you're comfortable with, we'd love to see you," and we'd decide that's what we were going to do until one of us would counterpoint. Meanwhile, our beloved birthday girl was trotting down the hallway with books, toys, and little gifties, or screeching at us every time we came near in the hopes that we'd get started with a rousing game of indoor tag.

We were ignoring our daughter while trying to decide how best to celebrate her. Let this never happen again.

I think our executive friends would have looked outside and said something like, "Oh, isn't that nice, a snowy day for our little one's birthday, how memorable. We'll throw a party and see who shows up. " End of story.

The point is, we didn't have a birthday party and we were very sad. Instead, for a variety of reasons entirely beyond our control, we ended up with a small family gathering that included a TOTAL stranger, a man I had never met nor heard about before in my life, someone who gave off weird vibes and looked far too directly into everyone's eyes despite a tendency to seem cloaked in obscurity.

Understand, of course, that I don't know this man and he is, after all, a human being and possibly a very nice one. I just didn't like him. Possibly just because he was there.

There is a whole litany of reasons behind why this felt so unacceptable to me.

I am trying to determine what balance I will follow for public posts such as this. I think for the time being I will remember that said stranger and family member might at one point discover this blog and so I will proceed with some decorum. It just wasn't fair, is all. I don't think Emily Post would ever allow such a decision to be made. No, she would advocate that logical thinking be used, hearty peppering of self-inquisition before carefully deciding to NOT bring one's own guest. In fact, I am sure if I pull out her guide it will say something precisely thus: Do not bring total strangers to small children's birthday parties, especially weird ones, and in particular to parties that are bungled and snowed-in.

What we would have preferred is to have taken Cora out for a snowy adventure and let the various people who offered to visit just stop by without being afraid of whether or not the stranger would scare them away.

I realize how uncharitable and ungenerous in spirit this sounds.

We did have a few visits from great people, including our very good friends down the street who brought their 18-month-old daughter and a lot of laughter and levity to the afternoon. People dropped off flowers on the porch for our baby. And the neighbors trooped over with their 5 and 7 year old boys, bringing with them a giant stuffed lion with an impressive mane, and additional cupcake eating ammunition.

What remained at the end of the day was a combination of love, joy, and simmering anger. And a very tired Cora. She seemed to have a perfectly fine time despite being tired and run down from a long week. She ate her chocolate cupcake daintily, and opened her gifts by tearing off strip after strip of wrapping paper from each package. She danced to her birthday CD brought by her loving auntie, and she was absolutely surrounded by lots of love all day, even if her mom and dad were stressed.

We didn't sleep well last night and I thought today was going to be a wash. But for a number of Polyanna reasons, I am finishing today feeling quite grateful. They are as follows:

I have a husband who understands me. This requires no additional explanation for anyone who has ever dated, lived with, or been friends or family members with someone who does not understand them in the way they need to be understood.

Today, Cora allowed me to spend nearly an hour talking to a dear friend this morning while I enjoyed the only kind of therapy session you can have with a woman you've been friends with for 13 years.

I realized with such clarity yesterday that our friends down the street are so cool and grounded, they are exactly the kind of people you can just be yourself with, dirty laundry and all.

I was able to remove the ghostly feeling of life having gone amuck, and Cora and I went for a walk in the snow and saw the world all lit up. She got to lie down in the snow and taste snowflakes, and seemed so pleased about the whole thing that she ate a huge lunch and slept for almost two hours.

At the store, she helped me shop by referring to my grocery list and pointing to items on shelves.

My neighbor scraped all the snow off of my car windows because, he said, "It's hard to do it while holding a baby."

I roasted my first chicken and B and I had the most relaxing dinner together while talking for over an hour.

About two years ago, a longtime friend of mine visited during a time when I was really depressed, when my job was awful and my life felt completely off kilter, and she told me to start a gratitude journal. She said, 'Even though it might feel difficult at first, or corny, just start writing about what you're grateful for, even if all you can be grateful for is a pair of socks.'

It's amazing how that list has grown and grown, and how life has changed. I think my gratitude, my husband and my daughter and my friends, have created a strong enough gravitational pull, like my own planetary body or giant star, to remedy disappointments and crazy-making moments, even ones that feel too big to conquer for a long history of reasons.

And I am so, deeply, endlessly, to-the-moon-and-back grateful for that.

Rainy day

Recalling for a moment that this is the northwest, you might think it's comical that I'm proud of myself for going for a walk in the rain this morning. We're all totally on the mend, no more cold or flu, and with a hot cup of tea and a big breakfast, this has already been a great day. Normally I would say, except for the rain, but it was awesome to take C out for a walk in her turbo-charged jogging stroller, all decked out with super impermeable rain fly and rocket design. We walked through some trails nearby, and she sang songs until the last few blocks when she fell asleep. She's back to a two nap/day schedule right now, which seems to be helping her get better.

Her 1st birthday is this weekend. I can't even believe it. We're having a party with friends and a bunch of kidlets ranging in age from 6 months to 4 years. We're going to do a deep clean tomorrow and sanitize all her toys. I'm just glad we managed to get through this in time to not have to cancel her first big party, that would have been sad.

One year. I can't believe it's been a year since I was bundled up and walking through the neighborhood trying to get my contractions going, eating spicy Szechuan in the hopes that the old wive's tale was true and I'd be able to jump-start labor without having to be induced. We went to the doctor on the 12th and had an ultrasound, and discovered that I was dangerously low on amniotic fluid and that the baby was out of room. The ultrasound tech told me to get ready to be admitted, she was sure I was going to be induced, and we just looked at each other with this mix of elation and fear, thinking about everything from Oh my God it's time, to sh*t, we forgot to bring an overnight bag with us. Funny how that overnight bag feels so important, and how it totally isn't. And then two days later we welcomed Cora into the world, full of joy and relief as we looked at this brand new being, everything intact, tiny and hungry.

Trying to put it in words would sound too precious and sentimental, I think, for this forum. It's one of those moments you remember all your life, something so tangible you can take it out and look at it anytime you want, polishing it between your hands until it is so smooth it shines.

I will never forget the thought I had just before she was born: I want her to be a free spirit. Celtic music was playing while she was born, and I had this image of her standing on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, looking out at rugged waters and rocks. We overlay so many of our own experiences on our kids, sometimes it can't be helped. When I looked out at the water from the Cliffs of Moher, I just remember feeling grateful to be there, happy to feel the wind on my face. I have this image of Cora traversing the world, seeing everything, having conversations with strangers on trains and in little cafes. She might be nothing like that, but I can't help thinking she has a bit of freedom singing through her veins.

This is going to be a homey day, I'm making turkey chili and cleaning house. We're going on a few errands, maybe we'll visit B during lunch. We'll probably use our newfound energy to rock the house with some major dance party tunes, play hide and seek and scream around the house with Cora's new shriek that she recently discovered while being chased by her dad.

Pinpricks

At one of the professional survival days in grad school, one of the presenters said that when she was feeling depressed about her writing, or the chances of being successful at it, she would visit a bookstore. She said that it made her feel better to see all those books on the walls. I had a moment like that today, when Cora and I went for a walk in the afternoon.

She and I have been suffering through the flu, and I've felt like my head might as well be made of cotton balls, and all the aches and pains have made me feel old and decrepit. So we haven't done much of anything this week, mainly just done circuits through the house playing with the same old stuff: I stack blocks, she knocks them down, we read Home for a Bunny seven times until the robin's singsong voice runs through my head saying "Here, here, here, here in this nest is our home," we dance, and then have a snack, and do it all over again. We took a three-hour nap together today, all cuddled up on our bed while she nursed. It was therapeutic to us both.

Anyway, we finally went for a walk. I bundled C in several layers of fleece (and she miraculously complied; I think she worried any protest might further delay her one tiny adventure for the week). We headed out in the cold, taking a different route than normal, and I pushed the stroller while watching C's arms sticking straight out in her body suit with built-in mittens. It felt so good to get a jolt of fresh air. I started noticing small changes in my neighborhood block: a neighbor's recently installed stairwell looking freshly painted and spiffy, a new art installation on one of my favorite yards, lights aglow on multiple houses. Luckily not too many giant Santas or blow-up reindeer. I used to kind of jeer at the whole holiday decoration thing. I think it's because my parents never got into that stuff, always looked at it as sort of lame and pedantic, like people didn't have anything better to do with themselves than hang lights and put Santa's entire crew on their rooftop. Now I realize that I was just a total scrooge. Even though I can't help thinking about all that energy that could be used for more responsible purposes, all the lights are actually very pretty, seem almost necessary beneath our oatmeal skies and 4 o'clock sunsets. It was fun to point them out to Cora.

I used to love going for walks and staring into people's windows. Not all up in their business or voyeuristic or anything, but just looking from the sidewalk and seeing snapshots of people's lives. We did that this evening, just C and I, and I tried to tell her what I saw, but often forgot. I need to be better about talking to her as we walk. We saw three old ladies playing cards at their dining room table. They all had poufy hair. They were sitting beside a glass cupboard with gold trim and display lights, so all the crystal trappings inside were lit up, sparkly even from the sidewalk. I remembered how my grammy used to play bridge once a week with the ladies. At the park, kids were climbing on the jungle gym, screaming and making a big fuss. One of the kids insisted on throwing gravel on the slide every time his sister tried to slide down, but she always managed to scramble back up. A nanny (I've met her before) pulled her little boy off the suspension bridge and carried him home. Several high-schoolers played soccer in the adjoining field. Down below, a single man threw the frisbee for his black lab. I passed a young girl wearing her iPod and carrying a backpack. She looked tired and depressed. I remembered when I used to work at Amazon and would take the express bus downtown, huddled next to someone I didn't want to talk to, so I'd whip out my iPod and look busy. I imagined this girl was coming home from her first real job, where perhaps she works as an entry-level assistant, spends the day feeling shy and lonely and underpaid, dreaming about the real thing.

As we rounded the final block home, and I started to talk to C about dinner preparations, I remembered that woman who presented at the conference, and her comment about bookstores. I had one of those totally commonplace observations where I was thinking that bookstores and neighborhoods are kind of the same, but it struck me nonetheless. Going to a bookstore is like opening the door to millions of minds, observations or advice or recipes or pieces of history, to scenes of people sitting at their kitchen table or playing in the park. We all want to connect somehow, but sometimes we just want to observe from a small distance, let our observations be selfishly focused on our own impressions, just to feel how stuff is relevant to us. When I used to feel overwhelmed by work or daily goings-on, my husband would remind me to zoom out high above the planet and just look down from that vantage point, see all the pinpricks of humanity like small lights creating energy, and recognize myself as just one of the many. I just had one of those afternoons today where I was energized by the commonplace, where trekking slowly with my kid and a cold was arguably as fulfilling as anything I've done.

Equilibrium

It's funny, I often proclaim that I have wanderlust, can't sit in one place for too long, always want to see what's happening on the other side. We often talk about traveling around the world with Cora and a couple of backpacks, maybe set up house for awhile on some Italian pastureland, pause for a bit on the Adriatic, maybe get lost in some Peruvian village, head back here when we're tired.

Which makes me laugh right now because we just got back from Columbus, OH, and I am exhausted. A three-hour time difference and a weekend with family was enough to make me want to sit in our house with the blinds closed, huddled in my pajamas, peering out at the street occasionally to see if the weather has changed (right now it's raining, a totally typical mid-winter Seattle).

Even though I do love my family, I think most people will generally agree that family visits are still not always easy. Meaningful, important, heart warming, but not really easy. Everything stands still for a few days while members convene and reacquaint. Memories are exchanged. Brothers in their thirties wrestle in the kitchen while toddlers clamor for attention from the adults. Moms-in-law make definitive statements about toys and food and sleep, while helping with the dishes and offering to sort laundry. Dads-in-law talk about their newly retired life, going hiking and drinking coffee, and tasting wine and such. And the harried mid-level adults (that's us), the ones stuck in between childhood and seniorhood, in arguably the height of our life, cook food, care for kids, roll our eyes, tease each other and bond amidst the chaos, and try to forget about work deadlines, nap and writing schedules gone awry, and the need to question every nonsensical point that might present itself throughout the weekend.

There were a few great highlights, including multiple rousing rounds of Hokey Pokey at random times throughout the days, and we explored Cora's cousin's super cool fort and tested out all his fun toys, stacked blocks and struck them down, and generally hammed it up the whole weekend. That's one of the things I love the most about my extended family, everyone tends to be pretty silly a lot of the time.

When the last Irish coffee had been sipped, the last piece of pumpkin pie eaten, the last sleeping child put to rest, and our tired bodies were in bed waiting to arise for the morning flight, all of us were thinking about where we left off back home. So we exchanged hugs and love and set off back to our respective dots on the planetary landscape, where somehow everything that we do feels immensely important, and the routine of doing it is comforting.

There's definitely peace in the routine of home. Structured mornings and afternoons with familiar faces and places. Weekend agendas. And though everyday life can sometimes feel like a daily grind, there are still moments in there where you can just think your own thoughts--something which can begin to feel oddly compromised in a full house. Going home is a big bag of stuff--it's your own bed, your own food, and the comfort you feel from spending time with your immediate family, where you can tease and joke and get all silly, snap back and even get in a fight, without the world coming to a halt. The boundaries have been established, the balance made clear.

We also had a tough trip home which drained both of us. Cora came down with the stomach flu on the plane, about an hour before we started our descent into Seattle. We've never seen her throw up and she did it violently five times before the plane landed. She turned pale green and her head bobbed limply. We were stuck in row 26, trying to mop everything up and make sure she was still breathing. Toward the end of the flight, her eyes started closing and her head rolled forward and we were staring at each other in horror, wondering if this was one of those moments you never dare to think about. After several more bouts, a trip to the doctor, and a good night's sleep, she's better--still fighting a virus, but doing fine. I think the trauma of being stuck on a plane is what did us in. We're first-time parents of a usually healthy child, so we only have a little experience with the powerlessness we felt yesterday. Life is precious and mysterious and it's easy to go hum drumming through life without thinking much about it until your sense of reality is tested. It's one thing to feel sick and be able to identify all your own aches and pains, know exactly how you feel and the amount of water you should drink to feel better, but it's totally different with a child. They just look at you and cry. It's awful.

Her illness falls into a theme or idea that has been on my mind these days: the fragility of moments. Not necessarily in a sad way, either, but in a way that reminds me of chance encounters, chance moments, the realities of being human...of living an intentioned life amidst things we can't control. I guess we can really just try to control what we can: our thoughts, our intent, our forgiveness and humility, the sincerity and consistency of our love. It requires a certain equilibrium to pull it all off, an ability to be strong in multiple ways.

O-hi-o

We're in Ohio this weekend visiting Cora's aunt, uncle, and cousin. It's beautiful outside, and C is sleeping upstairs. The time change was tough last night, but she went down for her nap right on time, so hopefully the transition won't be too rocky. I think she's going to get addicted to having a playmate in the house, she's never been able to wake up in the morning and immediately find a fellow, small house traveler to share toys with.

Last night, we lay in bed talking for several hours after C went to sleep, just listening to her breathe softly while we waited to get tired. The time change was actually pretty fun in that respect. Most nights we are too sleepy to do much more than just read our books and say a few things before turning off the light. We talked about something that has been a major topic for me lately: the fragility of moments and of thoughts, especially positive ones. I feel like there is such a pull to think about things negatively, to be tentative in our intentions. It's almost schooled into us to put ourselves down, to sort of hide away our true passions and brush them aside in conversation with small talk and a tendency to articulate the probable downside of things. Frankly, cynicism just sounds smarter, is often a product of experience and the daily grind. Choosing to have a hugely open heart and mind can feel naive and dangerous, like you're making yourself way too available to disappointment. We were talking last night about how brave you really do have to be to just say, "I want this, and I want it so badly that I am going to work really hard for it." I feel that we, at least, are conditioned to say something much softer, more cagey: "Well, I'm going to give it my best shot for awhile. It's tough, I know the chances are really slim, and so I'm just going to experiment for awhile. If it doesn't work out, I can always go back to what I was doing." Of course, I'm talking about dreams here, the ones that I think about all the time. But what is interesting to me is how pure things can be when you're not worrying about other people, about the cultural norm, or even the right language to use in a certain setting.

I have friends and in-laws who have chosen difficult paths in academia, gone through the entire PhD process knowing that the territory they are entering is incredibly tough, hugely competitive and that, statistically, the chances are slim. But they keep doing what they want to do because it's what they want to do. Their path is relatively long (5-10 years), full of uncertainty and hard work and critique, and doesn't have a definite end in sight. It often involves sacrifice to get there, both in limited graduate school income and location, sometimes living in places they'd rather not live in order to pursue their profession. While it's a long haul, it is also a clear path, with clearly outlined measurement points and requirements. Why don't we allow that same amount of time, and have a clear idea of the work and sacrifice involved, to pursue all our dreams?

Anyway, I hear C waking. This has been a short one, mixed with nice conversations with my sister-in-law. It's just that I am reflecting on the fragility of dreams. They are like small, bright orbs that we must feed and tend carefully, guard from naysayers and pessimists, particularly those produced by our own minds.

Books and cooks and stuff

This is going to be a comically short post, I'm sure. Cora has been sleeping now for 40 minutes, which means she's about to wake up. I'll be in the middle of a sentence and will just publish with whatever I've got. It'll probably be peppered with spelling errors and randomness.

So, I'm writing a short story that I started over the weekend, and I am enjoying it so much. My mom came over today morning to watch Cora for awhile, and I headed up to the neighborhood coffee shop and had a cookie and a hot cup of blackberry tea, then got lost in my little tale. I think I'm about midway through. It is really odd how therapeutic it is to write, especially something other than a journal entry. Either my brain benefits from the work and concentration, or my psyche benefits from the escape...or maybe a little of both. I left the shop feeling happy, and my head felt clear.

Also, I am searching for a really, really, really good book to read, the kind that is so fabulous you can hardly wait to pick it up, and you're totally disappointed when you're too tired at night to read anymore, so you turn out the light and close your eyes, but end up creeping out to your living room couch for just a few more quiet pages, until suddenly you realize it's like 3 a.m. and you're completely wasted. I have been struggling with The Far Pavilions for about a year and a half now, and have read several books in between. I picked it up awhile ago hoping it would go back to being the incredible saga it was for the first 600 pages, but it's not. It's just a yawningly long-winded story that needs to wrap up eventually. At least that's how I feel right now, maybe I'll be convinced otherwise when I'm through. Still, it's the kind of experience right now where I look at the 300+ pages still to go, and I just kind of set it down reticently, wishing I had the gumption to keep ploughing through so it would just be over already.

I was at the bookstore the other day and saw a bunch of new, contemporary fiction, and it occurred to me that maybe I've become one of those readers that just really likes contemporary stories. I like the way the books look so clean and blue (have you noticed there's so much blue in the covers these days?) and filled with references to water. I tend to like novels that are told from a whole bunch of perspectives, little linked tales that weave together into a final, satisfying story. Hmm. I also loved Shadows of the Wind, which I read a bit ago. So maybe I need a contemporary novel. But no, that's not really true, either...I read Pride and Prejudice the other weekend and enjoyed that, too (even though I used to claim I hated Jane Austen, which was a silly thing to say), and I think Jane Eyre might still be one of my favorite books. I also just finished Possession, which I've read many times and still totally love. I'm craving a bit of a mystery, with some good romance mixed in, something crisp and clean but with satisfying soggy places, too. Anyway, if you're reading this and you would care to suggest one to me, even an old classic that I should reacquaint myself with, I would be grateful.

I am always surprised by how short the days are in a northwest December. It's only 4 o'clock and it's getting dark. It's hibernation time. I need a good book, a good blanket, a pot of tea, and a pair of slippers. I'm already thinking about dinner, which feels odd--the day slips by and we have to get out during the three beautiful hours in the afternoon, otherwise we've missed it, the window has closed.

Good grief, I'm still writing, which means the wee one is still sleeping. Good for her. Maybe I'll ramble for a second longer. I've been enjoying cooking, and it's because I like cooking winter food. I like baking squash and potatoes and chicken, making big pots of soup with all sorts of random stuff in it, baking a quick batch of cookies or muffins. I've decided I need more recipes. My sister gave me the recently updated Joy of Cooking, and it has a million ideas, of course (including a really good mushroom barley soup and a shepherd's pie), but not necessarily a lot of recipes with kind of a different twist on things, like spicy quinoa or a healthy creamed soup without a ton of cream. I'd like to find a recipe book that was into "pinches" and "pats" rather than asking me to pull out my little fan of measuring spoons all the time. That's why I don't follow very many recipes, I get impatient.

There's a cat lurking outside my window, stealthily searching for some little rodent to tumble around with, and it reminds me of how much fun it's going to be to have a toddler in the spring and summertime. I am going to plant a small garden for us to tend, and we'll be able to play tag on our lawn, and I'll even be able to dress little C up in a swimsuit and set up the sprinkler. Right now, there are all these mushrooms dotting the grass, and clumps of dog poop from my mom's dog (grr), and I am having a tough time letting her go out there and wobble around. I know parents need to achieve that fine balance between curiosity and safety, allowing their children to properly explore their world. And I'm totally OK with that, I'm just not cool with my wobbly little kid eating random fungus and moldy canine contributions. So, we've obviously got some work to do on our yard before it becomes the outdoor extravaganza that I hope she'll come to enjoy.

You know, my ridiculous little baby is actually sleeping the afternoon away. I am very proud of her. I'm going to go back to my story and see how far I can get with the next scene.

Island kids

My parents were able to give us a lot of independence, the kind that is impossible today in the city and in these strangely uncertain times when trust isn't a given, when you can't just let your kids stay out till dark playing with their friends unsupervised. We lived on a small island, in a private community, and we knew nearly all our neighbors within a mile. Our house was in a little cul de sac, surrounded by forest. We lived on about an acre, like most of the houses on our block, and on our lot alone we had at least five secret forts. We also had a decent sized playhouse that my dad built, tucked far behind our house, a recessed sandbox in the raised deck that wrapped around the kitchen and living room, a tire swing fort, and an excellent driftwood birdhouse that my sister helped build.

We made good use of these areas. My sister and I would go through obsessive periods with our playhouse, setting it up with bunk beds and planning to sew our own quilts, bringing out all the unused pots and pans from the kitchen, arranging tables and chairs and washing the windows and skylights (thanks to my dad, it was a pretty spiffy house, all decked out with two skylights and several windows, and a door with a real brass doorknob, and I think it even had some kind of a doorbell, the kind that you pulled--at least I think it did, but maybe I'm just making that up). Inspired by Little House on the Prairie and Hansel and Gretel, my sister and I gathered a bunch of rocks at the beach and made a long, snaking pebbled pathway that lead to the door. I think we spent at least an entire weekend working on it. We painted the walls with watercolor and Tempra paint--one wall yellow, one red, one green, with a pink ceiling. We also had a big fire pit out back, and I remember scary ghost story nights with the neighborhood kids, singing songs and roasting marshmallows while big potatoes charred in aluminum foil. It was a large fire pit, not a little squirrelly thing, and produced roaring fires that you could be proud of, even though the thick layer of dry, deciduous leaves on the ground meant that we always ran the risk of burning down the entire establishment. At some point, we got into the whole idea of ivy-covered walls and trees, so we transplanted ivy plants to the ground below all the trees and the house. Even when my parents informed us that the ivy would kill the trees, we pushed back, feeling strongly that it was an important touch, something you just had to do for the right atmosphere. But invariably we would forget all about our playhouse and our plans until months later when we would be back out there, pulling down cobwebs and raking the leaves. Almost all our adventures were inspired by the books we were reading, so at some fairy tale point we got invested in the idea of a good security system and spent days digging a moat around our playhouse, and a huge hole in the backyard covered with a network of strategically placed branches and leaves, even dusting the surrounding area with similar ground cover to ensure that any errant bandits would end up with twisted ankles or broken necks. My sister actually sported a very nice swollen ankle a few months later when we dashed out there and forgot about our great work.

In the 70s and 80s, being home schooled was a very weird concept, especially in a small community like ours where the school system was comparatively pretty tops. It wasn't for religious reasons, it just stemmed from an idealistic, hippie, and controlling notion my mom had about raising kids to be free spirits, unfettered by rules and bells and tests and gossip. Our curriculum was about as unstructured as our approach to decorating our playhouse--there were days that began at 4 or 4:30 with work in our family-owned sprout business where we bagged sprouts while wearing kerchiefs or underpants on our head to keep our super long, braided hair from shedding everywhere. (Yes, sprouts...it started as a homeschooling project on photosynthesis and became the 2nd largest sprout business in the state--a topic for another post.) Dad would quiz us on the order of planets in the solar system and mom would keep up an ongoing spelling bee. Then we would adjourn in the dining room for some ultra healthy breakfast--miso soup, brown rice with gomasio (sesame seed salt), seaweed, sauteed vegetables, and maybe some fried mochi. We'd often munch on an entire bowl of newly-whacked steamed kale from our organic garden. Sometimes we'd get lucky and end up with a slightly more normal breakfast--homemade waffles that my mom made with freshly ground flour in her grinder, or huge bowls of oatmeal covered with dried fruit faces, or scrambled tofu and toast. Mom would spend the meal waxing on and on about yin and yang and the balanced elements of our food, the level of salt and sweet and whether it was cooked enough or too much, and if that day's batch of soup or rice was as good as yesterday's. Then we'd practice our multiplication tables or play with our flash cards, or go on a nature walk with our biology books. We read a lot, talked a lot, studied world religion and Buddhist philosophy, meditated and did yoga and wrote stories. We walked at least 5 miles a day, played outside every morning and afternoon and evening, wandered through the woods and collected leaf bouquets and snails and ladybugs and worms, centipedes and injured birds and pine cones and flowers and rocks. Mom or dad would call us home from all corners of the neighborhood with our signature family whistle, a long, sharp, curling call that we could hear from miles away and had to obey even if we were in the middle of a riveting game of flashlight tag with the neighbor kids.

My parents obviously had a dream--albeit quite unusual--for their family which they managed to pull off amazingly well for quite a number of years. I wish I could say that it lasted, that they were still over there together, mulching their compost pile or weeding their garden, playing guitar and cooking giant pots of soup or holding yoga conventions, even sunbathing naked on a perfect summer day. They would both make fabulous eccentric older island people, kind neighbors and community members.

Strangely, despite years of indifference and hostility about their neuroses, I find myself wanting to replicate many of my parent's ideals, knowing that even though I could open our door and let Cora play in our backyard until well past dark, her stomping ground would obviously be pretty truncated compared to mine; 6,000 square feet in a city neighborhood is hardly the darkly fantastic woods of my childhood. We certainly will never let her play with friends in a meadow at 7 p.m., while all the parents stand around somewhere else chatting about all the neighborhood goings-on. It's not likely she'll ever get to spend an entire afternoon losing her shoes in a giant field with grass so tall it's several feet higher than her, while she carves out an entire mansion with bedrooms and everything, simply by staring up at the sky and falling backward to make giant body imprints. And I'm guessing she might be too cool to dash around the house putting on clip-on pearl earrings for her first date with Peter, the boy across the street, so that they might be able to hold hands on their way to the creek to build a dam on a rainy day.

Reflections

As most parents often say, having a child brings a lot of laughter and love into your life. (And, often, too, a lot of sleeplessness and exhaustion.) As Cora starts her foray into toddlerhood, I am discovering a new kind of connection to her. Having a baby is very parental; it's very much focused on taking care of and changing and swaddling and rocking and soothing. Having a near-toddler is a new phase, it begins to brush against my own memories of being a wee one, navigating around my home and getting into mischief. It's when memory started. All the little connections started firing away and I began to see the world as something I was a part of, something separate and yet connected, a vast and exciting world of discoveries. Everything is new to Cora! Sometimes I can't get over that. She just keeps growing and stretching, everything is getting bigger--even her little hands and feet are noticeably wider and longer, more able to grip things and walk upon.

Nearly every morning when she wakes up, one of us will get up and bring her into our bed, where I will nurse her back to sleep. She snuggles between us, looking infinitely secure and so small next to her 6'2" dad. This morning I got up for a glass of water, and when I crept back into bed I had one of those moments when it all becomes so clear for the briefest of instants: this is my life. Those two people are my family, the ones I love more than anything else in the whole world, would break to pieces without, wait for at the end of a long day, look for in the mornings, want to hold and squeeze and cuddle. In the quiet of the morning, while light crept through our curtains, I looked at them while total gratitude ran through my veins. This is our life: three linked people--two grown-ups and a little helix of us sleeping softly between.

As I watch Cora grow into her adamant self, I find myself reflecting more on my own childhood. If I stop and ask myself to define the first memories I associate with being a kid, it is so easy--immediately I remember exploring the woodsy acreage on Bainbridge Island, the stomping ground of my first 12 years. We had the immense luck of having a 40-acre, forested backyard owned by a reclusive rich lady who never used her land. I think I spent the majority of my childhood exploring the mossy interior of those woods, making booby traps and keeping a nature log and writing bad poetry. I often set out with my sister or my friends, but what stands out the most are the days when it was just me and my dog Valley, snuffling through the land looking for fairies and gnomes, listening to the birds, making bouquets of trilliums (until I learned, to my horror, that they can take up to 15 years to first produce a flower, and, if you pick the bloom, it can take up to seven years for it to flower again), and feeling the world roll at my feet. These spaces of solitude continue to define happiness for me. I think I have been searching for that place ever since we left. I also remember getting into a lot of mischief with my sister, stealing stuff and making prank calls, trying to smoke tea bags and almost burning down our backyard. And while there are countless memories of adventures with my family, going camping on Orcas Island or Shi Shi beach, walking on rocky beaches, or helping my mom cook in the kitchen, those aren't the times that stand out first and foremost.

All the time and attention that we pour into our children is for the purpose of helping them thrive on their own. We spend their young lives trying to fill them with our love, hope with all our might that they will search for experiences that mirror the love and trust and security we hope they felt as a member of our family. And if they are able to wander into the world by themselves and feel a sense of awe, and give something of themselves that comes from a place of security, then perhaps we can credit ourselves a little bit for that. Or perhaps it is entirely to our children's credit.

I waffle on this point because we all have such different experiences. What breaks one bolsters another. What defines one is only peripheral to another. I mention this because, interestingly, sometimes my most vivid memories of my parents are negative ones. They are the breaks in the fabric of an idyllic existence, ones that began to unravel everything until our perfect home on the island became tattered and worn out, exhausted and dangerous. It has taken 30-plus years to revisit those tough times in my head and look at them with adult eyes, to understand the network of stuff that slowly broke everything down. So I wonder if there is some kind of cadence to it all, a process by which we filter through all the good and all the junk and arrive at a balanced equation that defines us. There was obviously a huge amount of good in my childhood, so many moments that surprise me when I remember them, so much dedication and kindness, so much attention and care. I give my mom and dad great credit for the parents they wanted to be. They put effort into it. I have huge respect for that.

And with the tough stuff, I got perspective. For better or worse, it makes me, me. Admittedly, when I lie on my pillow and look at my slumbering baby and incredible husband, and think about everything around me, from the memories that are so vivid they are like fixtures, to the walls of our house to the food in our refrigerator, I feel...lucky. I remember closing my eyes and wishing wishing wishing.

It is all so deeply personal. That's what I continue to arrive at. We all have our own stories: stories that we tell ourselves, stories that happened to us, stories where we become the heroic protagonists of our own fate--stories that define us in ways that inspire our present and shape our future. And at some level, we can't help comparing ourselves to each other, because that's what we do. As human beings, we look inside and then look out, and somehow place ourselves somewhere on that trajectory. Some people are so fascinated by the similarities and differences that exist between people or countries or solar systems that they make it their life work to analyze them. Some focus on our psychology, studying inner realities and drawing connections to outer experiences. Some, like my husband, are artists, have trained a huge section of their brain to memorize lines and light, shape and form, and they create new worlds for us to enter quietly, helping us play and imagine.

For some reason, I like to tell stories. Was it because my mom used to tell me I was a good writer, would sit with great attention while I read her my stories about squirrels and rabbits in the woods? Is it because I liked the quiet time, or because I have escapist issues, or because I like to study people? When do our dreams begin, and what starts them? What is the energy that draws us to our life work, and what sustains it?

Another Monday

I was sick all day yesterday, so I'm surprised I'm doing as well as I am today. I woke up feeling awful, but after a cup of tea and a couple of Advil I feel a little achy, but fine overall. We went on some errands this morning; I dropped off my computer at work and said hi to some coworkers, and then went grocery shopping. It was nice to see people at work and have such positive feelings overall--both about my experience there, and my conviction that I am doing the right thing right now.

We spent Saturday visiting my mom and dad on the peninsula. Dad and his wife were taking care of their grandchildren for the weekend, and Cora had fun playing with the two older girls. They were incredibly sweet to her, and Cora loved the attention. Then we spent the evening with mom. Mom has been sorting through all our childhood toys and organizing them in little baskets throughout her house. It was great to play with toys that I used to love (all these beautiful wood blocks and ferry boats, wooden cars and rattles and noise makers), and to watch Cora happily playing at her grandma's house. It was a totally nostalgic experience to remember being a little person at my grammy's place, the same house mom is living in now, and to look out the window at the beautiful 180-degree view--Mt. Rainier, Seattle, Puget Sound, the ferry making its lazy path around the island. Mom made us an awesome dinner and we sat around together and just relaxed and ate and talked.

I've decided to submit a story to Glimmer Train. It's a great anthology and I feel goose-bumpy and excited about submitting something to it. And I have been noticing little story-beginnings starting to march into my head--nothing super structured yet, but still. It feels good.

I don't know why it is, but for some reason writing doesn't feel like this big scary thing anymore. It feels like this awesome, tangible activity that I can spend time enjoying. It doesn't need to always be a highly serious act, a thing that requires blood and bone and lost sleep. I feel interested in writing about happy things, moving away a bit from the more morose stories I used to like to write.

I just keep thinking about the importance of dreams, of sticking with what you believe in, of putting energy toward those things that are most important in your life. And on that note, I am going to finish this post with a link to one of the best songs I've ever seen in concert: Bruce Springsteen's Dream Baby Dream. I watched it at the Key Arena in 2005. I think the song lasted about 10 minutes. Everyone was standing and swaying, crying, staring down at the stage totally transfixed. The repetition felt important--like we need to be told at least a hundred times to hold on to our dreams, because they are so easily neglected or lost.

Tea and chocolate...and Friday

I love tea. Earl Grey is my favorite, I'm pretty much addicted to the taste of bergamot. And I recently picked up some Ritter Sport hazelnut chocolate that tastes especially good when paired with a hot cup of tea. It's Friday and we just had an awesome morning with one of my most supportive and sweet friends, and her little daughter. We went to the Seattle Children's Museum and enjoyed all the fun activities there. Cora took a nap this morning and is sleeping again now...She seems super tired after this long week of activities and sleep disturbances while I try to figure out her schedule.

Tea and chocolate. Yum. I love that Cora is fast asleep, growing her brain and her body while I decay mine slowly with sugar and caffeine. I have enjoyed a complicated struggle with caffeine, and wish right now that I was drinking full-strength coffee and buzzing about with a million fresh ideas, instead of soaking up whatever small strain of caffeine is left in my decaffeinated tea, and waiting for it to give my brain a midday boost.

I'm looking forward to the weekend and a few good adventures. Cora spent 10 minutes kissing and waving goodbye to her Dada this morning, and I know she will be all abuzz with excitement when he comes home tonight. She has a different personality with him, gives him tons of wrinkled-nose smiles and giggles, and joyfully watches him perform silly antics for her. This morning we waved frantically at him through the living room window while he did a dance on the sidewalk, kicking up his feet and clicking them together, then spinning around in fabulous ballet form. And then she just quietly settled down and started playing with her animal flash cards and books while I did the dishes. She loves to come in to the kitchen and hang on my leg and then take small journeys to the cupboards and shelves, rummage about the drawer with all the metal lids, and then head back for another leg snuggle.

I have been thinking about my MFA program, and voice and character development and all the writerly things that we studied and thought about intensely for two years. It is so much easier to write about little Cora, a tangible little character in my house who wanders around and laughs and cries and waves and kisses. But I am excited to start writing short stories about quirky characters' lives and adventures. It occurs to me that I should know my fictitious characters as well as I know Cora; I should imagine what they were like as children, the environment where they grew up...it's important, it's formative. It sticks with us. It's something I've thought about loosely before, but it honestly hasn't struck me with such force until now. What I am thinking is that I had better be in love with my characters enough to write about them. Even if I hate what they stand for, I should love them as human beings enough to write carefully about them, to research their first words and first crushes, elementary and high school memories.

A short one

Yesterday Cora and I had one of those days I know I will remember forever. We went to the arboretum and walked through the linked meadows and trails above the visitor's center. Brightly colored leaves littered the ground, and there were still enough of them in the trees to make everything look decorated for a party. It is so odd to have a walking child. Even though she still looks like a zombie, she is able to navigate around quite well. We jumped in piles of leaves and felt all the textured tree trunks and branches. We found a huge cedar tree and ducked under its bower of branches, studying a squirrel while it zipped and bounced above us. My favorite part of the day was when I put her on my shoulders and we ran down a hill to this beautiful yellow tree that literally looked dazzling in the distance. We raced across the meadow and she laughed the whole time. I held her lengthwise in my arms under the tree so she could look up at the contrast of yellow against blue sky, and we spun around while she just giggled and giggled. I swear, I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but when I looked down at her lovely upturned face staring up at her new world, grinning ear to ear with five and a half new teeth peeking through, I found myself moved to tears. I was looking at everything through her eyes. It is like watching a door slowly open and seeing your child peer around it, starting their journey into childhood.

When we first found out I was pregnant, I took two tests consecutively. I felt like my heart was going to burst through my chest with excitement. We had to meet a friend for lunch out in Tacoma, a long drive from our house, and we held hands a lot of the way. I looked out the window and imagined this new life inside. I remember that I suddenly felt as if everything that I was looking at, our little baby was seeing, too. I felt like an important filter, as if I needed to record everything around me more carefully, more accurately. And then I remember this precise moment when I switched over from being myself to imagining that I was my child all grown up, sitting in the passenger seat listening to melancholy music on a Sunday. I will never be able to see everything exactly as Cora does. I can only imagine the wonder she must feel as her life unfolds before her a day at a time. I hope she will always have quiet days in meadows, will sit for long moments in the grass, a little pinprick in the middle of a frenetic world, while she pauses and thinks how big the sky is, how blue and how wide and how open.

All sorts of small changes

Before I decided to quit my job, I had accepted a promotion that would have involved more hours. In order to make it all work out in my head, I had decided that we needed support. At the risk of sounding like I think pampering is just a way of life, I still feel like I need to outline the extent of what this change would have involved. We were going to have a full-time nanny. I was also thinking it would be awesome if the nanny would be willing to prepare dinner once in awhile, and clean up after Cora. Now, of course, the goal of having a nanny was not to have additional household help, it was that Cora would get undivided attention. That said, it started to sound pretty tempting to have someone organize our disastrous cupboards and vacuum once in awhile, even do dishes and laundry. So I realized that in order to save our relationship with said nanny, we would need to hire housecleaning help. And, because our yard is in total disarray--leaves everywhere, weeds overtaking all beds--I thought, well, we should hire someone to help with that, too. In my mind, it was the only way to keep sanity alive in a household of two working parents, both of whom would need to work late probably more often than we cared to admit. Suddenly, however, when I listed it out in my head, it started to feel like I was going to farm out all the everyday work tasks of life so that I could sit at a computer and make money. (I know there is a lot more virtue to working full-time than making money, such as building a career, keeping my resume alive, bringing in my own share of the income--but that is for another post on another day). It also began to feel like we should live in an estate, rather than our humble little house.

So, one of the new daily parts of our lives is for me to do all the things I was thinking I would pay someone to do.

I went grocery shopping a couple of days ago and started really trying to find ways to save money. Things are obviously a lot tighter without my income, and I've figured out exactly what we can afford each week. And I know perhaps this might sound odd to some people, but one of my favorite things to do is to go grocery shopping. I love filling my cart with a whole bunch of yumminess, picking out a new sauce or chocolate or wine or microbrew. We go to Trader Joe's at least once a week. When I was shopping at TJ's this last time, I realized that I often gravitate toward more prepared foods than I used to--like frozen cooked chicken and jars of simmer sauce, granola bars and hummus and roast turkey and ice cream. And the cart would literally be filled to the gills with goodness, but I wouldn't know quite what to fix when I got home and it was all unpacked and sitting untidily in our kitchen. Aside from the obvious health benefits of cooking more of our food from scratch, I have been feeling more and more aghast at the final bill and now, of course, is an important time to reign things in.

I grew up in a family that put a huge focus on whole foods, to a neurotic extent. At one point my family's diet/lifestyle was defined as organic, sugar-free, vegan macrobiotic, which, as you might imagine, narrowed things down considerably. I didn't eat meat until I was 22. When we used to go grocery shopping, the really expensive stuff we sprung for were things like imported seaweed, organic aduki beans, almond butter, yeast-free organic bread. And then when I was in college, I lived on a college budget and was literally able to leave the grocery store with enough food for a week for around $25. I actually loved to buy frozen veggies (boring ones, like cut carrots and peas and corn and lima beans) and heat them in the microwave and put salt and pepper on them. Then I started living with my now-husband and discovered how tasteless and limiting my grocery list was, so I started buying a lot more interesting foods and eating out more--and growing to love it. There were weeks when we lived in Pasadena when I'm not sure we cooked at all. Now, I'd like to go back to the source. I want to buy bulk foods and soak and cook beans from scratch, make whole meals out of dry ingredients and marinate poultry for a day before cooking it rather than defrosting it in the microwave before hurriedly serving it up. I want to bake bread and make cookies. Things that take time. This morning I baked a big kabocha squash, a ton of yams, and apples and pears. I made Cora a pot of creamy squash soup and I might try making her some yam and apple cookies.

I am just having layered realizations about how much I have missed out on because of habit or a lack of time or connection to my own life. I like working with food in its original form. I like cooking, I like the way food nourishes beyond nutrition. I like thinking about food in a different way, having the time to do it justice. I close my eyes and can imagine that organic garden behind my dream home on the island. I imagine finishing my work on a new chapter, walking downstairs and putting on my dirty gardening shoes, going outside and loosening the soil around carrots and green beans, trimming tomato plants and picking lettuce, filling a basket with food that I have helped grow and harvest. And I can picture my family eating soup and laughing while they tell silly stories and soak bread in their bowls.

Writing here is like opening a lid slowly on something that has been lying dormant, growing old and stale. Just typing makes me aware of the alchemy of the act, of charged elements mixing around me and starting to shift everything. Small changes feel so big right now.

Yesterday evening we went for a walk around Green Lake. It gets so dark, so early at this time of year--by 4:30 it felt like it was already 8 o'clock. I watched the sky darken and a true twilight set in, the kind I haven't witnessed in forever. Light streaked across the sky and turned violet. Ducks skimmed across the water. All the trees around the lake were ablaze with autumn, reflecting themselves on the shoreline. Cora was asleep on my chest. Her small snores would periodically interrupt the sound of people running by or chatting about their day. I walked past two high school kids singing something about marshmallow pie. Even though Cora was so heavy on my chest, a sleepy 24-pound weight, I felt layers of myself rising up and feeling so light and free. I felt grateful to my core.

Second Day

Napping is still a challenge, it still took way too long. Cora is addicted to bouncing. We have instilled it in her. It's not fair, really, to ask her to quickly banish an addiction that we spent the first 11 months of her life instilling, only to try to rip it out from under her feet because it doesn't really fit anymore. It's like giving someone chocolate or coffee or heroin every afternoon and then saying, "You know, it's not really working for me anymore. I'm going to have to take that away now." I am trying to be very, very patient. It is made more difficult by the fact that I start each nap session with high hopes. I have these lofty "aha!" moments when, literally, I feel my heart leap inside my chest while I watch her eyelids slowly droop and drop. She's falling asleep! It's going to work! She's learning, she's so smart, I am so amazed, I can't wait to go down and write about how amazing she is! Yippee! And then, no, her eyes whip open and she sits up and claps. She knows some sign language, so she'll ask me to change her diaper, and I will, but it will be dry, and she'll wriggle over and try to play with her pink shoes on the changing table. I'll rock her and sway her and she'll push away, so I'll put her back in her crib and she'll stand up and ask for milk. So I try nursing her, and I am sure it will be all she needs to fall asleep. But instead she sits up and asks to read.

I promised I would write about poop, and I shall. I am realizing that Cora seems to have a morning and an afternoon poop. The morning one occurs when she is reading her books by herself, quietly reflecting on Goodnight Moon, and then she comes out to the kitchen where we are preparing breakfast, and asks us to change her diaper. The afternoon one, it seems, happens when she is trying to go down for her nap. Who can go to sleep when they have a poo brewing? So, I am going to give her more time to poop, and I am going to stop trying to put her to sleep so early. Normally she falls asleep at 10, so I thought Noon was a reasonable stretch. It seems she is a 12:30 pooper and a 1:00 sleeper.

See? I am learning about my daughter.

I finished yesterday's post with a reflection on the importance of writing, and on my recent reading of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. When I looked for a link for the book yesterday, I found her web site. Today I started my nap time writing session with her perspective on writing. Here is my favorite excerpt:

"As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows."

She also has some weighty things to say about sending your stuff in for publication, which certainly hit home. Why on earth don't I send something in and just TRY to get it published? I now vow to send something in before the end of 2008. For God's sake, it's really not that hard. I have waaaayyy overblown the whole thing by worrying about it so much. It's a perfectionist thing and also a laziness thing. And, to be fair, also a busy thing. I haven't had the wherewithal to comb through my work and see if there is something worthy of sending out, let alone researching the right publication. And finding stamps, that's always so hard. Uh. But whatever. I am now taking up my own precious time conjecturing about my lack of success instead of reflecting on something more interesting.

I have been thinking a lot about my dreams. Sometimes, the life that I want to lead is so tangible I feel like I can smell it. I think I've been visiting it in my mind since I was a kid, and I've definitely revisited it at least a thousand times since I started working in offices. Every time I made myself focus on an assignment, I would think of this house on an island. It's this totally romantic and amazing place. It's a well-built home in the middle of the forest, near the ocean (you can see the water from the upper attic windows). We designed it ourselves. There are two wings: the sleeping wing and the working wing. The sleeping wing has sloping ceilings with skylights so you can look at the stars at night (and there are so many of them because where we are it is dark, and quiet, and remote). There are huge trees outside, and a tree house tucked away out back where Cora has a whole family of handmade dolls and books and blankets, and her own bed where she takes quiet naps on the weekends. Inside our house there is a huge, open kitchen filled with sturdy appliances and good pots and pans. There is an entire cupboard filled with apples and squash and potatoes and other hardy fruits and vegetables. Everything is recycled or recyclable, no plastic or waste. The kitchen opens into a cozy eating area where there is a huge, oiled wood table with benches and big wooden chairs. Handmade pottery is stacked in an an old, country-style wood cabinet nearby, and there's a big red bowl in the center of the table, overflowing with fresh fruit. On one side of the eating area is a big, old-fashioned wood stove filled with a roaring fire. On the other side is the glass-enclosed garden that sits at the center of our house, and sun and rain pour in and even small birds nest in one of the maples in the spring. Outside it is mossy and verdant and it smells tingly and salty and green, totally overpoweringly filled with life and stillness and birds calling.

And we sit in the working wing, looking out at the ocean rolling in the distance, and I write my stories and my novels and my musings. And people wait for them.

First Day

Today is my first day as a full-time mom. The weather didn't disappoint, it has been one of the most glorious Mondays I can remember. Golden sun; crisp, colorful leaves; blue sky; a hint of warm in the air of an otherwise chilly autumn day. We went for a walk at Green Lake and felt all the tree trunks for their different textures, touched leaves and pine needled branches, barked at all the dogs, and spent long minutes staring at a group of ducks bob and play in a quiet piece of lake surrounded by a grassy knoll. Cora blew kisses at the people she felt needed them, and waved at everyone else.

Nap time is not easy. It took a long time for her to fall asleep today, but that is also because I am trying to find the "right way" to do it. I read her a story, put a blue blanked over her window, put her in her pajamas, read to her, sang to her, rocked her, and put her in her crib. She lay there looking up at me with her finger on her mouth, copying me as I said, "shhhh." I left the room and she hung out in there for awhile, babbling to her doll and her dog. I kept coming in and helping her lie down, and she'd copy my "shhh" and then sit back up. She ended up hanging out in her crib chewing on the rail protector and throwing her socks on the floor. She doesn't know how to lie down and go to sleep on her own, which presents a problem. But every time I try a brief period of letting her cry in her room alone, I feel terrible. It works, but I feel awful, and she seems to feel awful, too. So, the nap thing is a challenge for me. I just don't feel calm about it, don't feel like a baby whisperer of any kind when it comes to Cora's naps. I start getting really frustrated and dazed about the whole thing. It's funny, because she actually sleeps amazingly well at night (I am knocking on wood right now). She goes to sleep around 8:30 and sleeps till 5, then nurses back to sleep until 7 or 8. Whenever we try to get her to take two naps (which is typical for her age), she ends up sleeping about 25 minutes in the morning and then fighting her second nap until she knocks off for another 30-45 minutes. So I'm trying to see if she'll nap longer if she just takes one, long midday nap. Today I finally nursed her to sleep. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

Of course, this whole nap thing is quite a topic for me, because it is during this time of the day that I get to write. Or at least that's how I have it set up in my mind. I think she would actually be OK if I wrote a bit while she was awake, too, especially because she is great at entertaining herself with her books and her toys. But regardless, I do view this window of time as my opportunity to collect myself and refresh, to spend a few minutes just being myself and thinking my own thoughts. Which I do like to do. Which of course is a perfectly reasonable reason why, apparently, it might have made sense for me to continue working--it would seem that I would have had more time to myself, to think my own thoughts and be alone. The thing is, I was reflecting on this today (as I have done for many months prior), and what I want to say this: It just isn't so. It's precisely not true. The jobs I have held are all about deadlines and communication and thinking about other people and their needs. I want to think my own thoughts for awhile, and I want to write my own stuff. Just writing this entry instead of an email about a redesign or a product launch feels so darn good. It feels like my fingers are coming through my brain and plucking out a thought or two, taking them for a brief walk around the block, and then putting them back. It's like giving my brain a treat.

Already I feel better. I was feeling a bit ruffled about the whole nap situation. Feeling a bit "Mom-ish" and annoyed that I had to write a whole paragraph about sleeping issues. Just wait, I'll have a whole paragraph about poop here soon, too. It'll happen.

You know what I was thinking the other day? That reading is therapeutic. That if more people read instead of watched TV, we would have a healthier world. I mean mentally. So much focus is put on the link between TV and obesity, about getting outside and playing soccer instead of watching a show. But just reading a story is so deeply useful on a mental level. It feels like I am giving my head a shot of oxygen, like hanging my thoughts on the clothesline and letting them flap in the wind instead of tossing around spasmodically in the dryer. A large part of my personal transformation of late is due, in large part, to books. A few months ago, I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love," and followed her on a wonderfully quirky journey around the world. It wasn't just that the subject matter was so focused on freedom and inner guidance, but it was because suddenly I watched my thoughts follow along and fill in the spaces with my own imaginings. That's therapy. Reading is more active, brings up memories and thoughts and dreams. Every night now I read before going to sleep, and I think I am sleeping better because of it. I think I am living better, too.

New Phase

I quit my job on Monday. The day after I posted my first entry, actually. I spent last Sunday writing in my journal, writing in my blog, and taking time for myself to reflect and be quiet. It's amazing what happens when you have time to listen to your heart.

Not that it just took an afternoon of journal writing to come to this conclusion. We've been thinking about this option for quite awhile. It just took a long time to decide what to do.

I feel rather embarrassed writing about this topic. We are in a global recession, the economy is reeling from a series of major mistakes, and I am about to wax poetic about how good it feels to follow my heart. I have to begin with saying how grateful I am for the opportunity to consider my options, and to choose between two meaningful realities: working at a great job or staying home and raising our baby and working on my own writing. I know there are people who are battling far more difficult decisions, who work two or three or even four jobs, who have families to care for, and difficulty putting food on the table. But that does not change the reality I find myself in right now, one that allows me to spend time with my daughter and watch her grow, to give her all my love and attention, and to spend my time writing this post instead of hurrying to finish a project, meet a deadline, send an email, or dash to a meeting on the East side.

My heart feels so full with gratitude. I feel as if I am on the cusp of something personally significant. I feel like I have been battling logic versus dreams for a long time--left brain vs. right, the voice that tells me that I should never give up a job that pays almost six figures, that it is nonsense to believe that someday my efforts will lead to publication, that it is wrong to remove myself from a system that our entire economy depends on. And certainly I have been fighting the voice that says being a stay-at-home mom is weak and boring, isolated and indulgent, a sign of being too old-fashioned or domestic, too controlling to share my child with other skilled people. The reality is that I know my daughter would be fine if I didn't spend every day with her. She would thrive and prosper. But I want to be there to see it. Every small thing about her is precious and tiny, a little sprout of life that changes every week in ways that amaze me.

Cora and I were grocery shopping yesterday, and it was nearing the end of the day and her 11-month-old eyes were getting red-rimmed and dark-circled, and her pale little face was sort of peering around the store, trying to take it all in--the people, the noise, the smell of stinky cheese displays and bakery chocolate. She was perched on my hip with her little legs bent tight around my waist and her arm holding on to my shoulder (a pose that I will remember all my life, and will surely cry about when she heads off to her first day of school). We were in the checkout line, finally it was our turn to pay, and our cashier asked us how we were doing. "Oh, just fine, how are you?" I asked. "I'm okay," she said. "It's kinda been a long day." And my little daughter blew her a kiss. Which prompted the cashier to say, "Oh my gosh, a kiss for me?" And Cora blew more kisses, which made the cashier exclaim over and over again that she had just made her day. And Cora just smiled her gummy, 6-toothed, teething smile, and blew more kisses as we said goodbye. And then she hugged me and kissed me on the mouth all the way down the stairs to the car.

I need to firmly believe that mothering is a personal act, and that I will manage to make my mothering experience my own--filled with all my own successes and failures. And while I know that Cora will certainly find things she doesn't like about me and her dad, I just hope that she will still want to come home and spend time with us, will want to bring her friends, and will feel comfortable around us--and maybe even proud. More than anything, I want her to feel respected and loved. It is a huge undertaking to raise a child. They are vulnerable and fragile members of a family that was nearly formed before they arrived. Sometimes I watch Cora interact with us, and it hits me that she has no idea that we used to exist before her.

The Gist of It

My main goals for this blog are to be myself--to not get all caught up in whether I sound interesting or funny or cool. To not over-edit my sentences to the point where I whittle away each word and forget to write a whole paragraph. And to write here often enough that there emerges a story of some kind, some kind of path that seems to be sort of just written word by word, but eventually gets where I want to go. That would be gratifying.

Lately I've been trying to remind myself to take things a day at a time. Day by day, I say to myself when I feel overwhelmed. Or else I'll start humming a St. Francis song, something like, "do your work and do it well, step by step go slowly." It's such an enormous concept. To just focus on the moment at hand, to zone in on the present experience and stop all the muddling about of an over-stimulated, over-tired brain. I think daily life can have a way of making people forget themselves, and that's what I am trying to battle right now. It feels too easy to get up every morning, make my tea, follow the same routine, and march forward to evening time where a good book sits next to my pillow and I read a page or two before my eyes can't stay open any longer.

Dream, imagine, happen. A lot fits in there. It's what I believe--maybe more than I care to admit: That every thought you have starts to gain energy. When you think the same thought over and over, it begins to form its own force field, it starts to have actual mass, it begins to head down its own trajectory. Suddenly there you are. But even if you're an optimist, it's very unlikely you'll pat yourself on the back for having the wherewithal to think a good thought and bring about a happy ending. You'll chalk it up to luck or chance or fate, or you might decide the stars had aligned. But my point is that I believe it is all interconnected, that it's impossible to have a thought and for that thought to not have any impact.

I put the word Dream on my daughter's wall, right above her window looking out on our backyard, and that is the only word I want her to worry about for her entire childhood.

It's so easy to look at your offspring and want to give them the world, to hand them every pearl, to wish for them every inspired moment. It's a lot harder to remember to cast your line into the vast, soupy muck of your own adult experience and believe you can pluck out the thing you've been wanting all your life.