Cookies and nautical adventures

I wanted to share a very quick and easy cookie recipe that I made for Cora the other day. The time-consuming part is having to bake some of the ingredients ahead of time. I have been wanting to make a healthy, well-rounded snack that doesn't contain any add'l sugar or unnatural flavors, etc.. All the ingredients are organic. I didn't measure anything, but that's the nice thing about this recipe, it's open to experimentation. It's meant to be fairly free of any allergens, but you could add chopped nuts, dried fruit, nut butters, trail mix, shredded coconut, cinnamon or nutmeg, vanilla or chocolate chips, etc., if you wanted to make it tastier for an older child:

4 small yams (skin on), baked until very soft
1 large apple (skin on), baked until soft
1 banana, ripe (doesn't need to be super ripe, just regular is fine)
1/2 cup raisins, cooked in vanilla rice milk until tender
About 2 cups oats (probably more)
2-3 T maple syrup
2-3 T rice syrup
1 tsp baking soda
2 T tahini (sesame butter)
2 T margarine

Preheat oven to 350. Remove skins from the yams. Mash yams, apple, and banana to a soft puree. Add raisins and mash. Add maple syrup, rice syrup, margarine and tahini. I made the cookies while the yams and apples were still quite warm, so the butter melted and the wet ingredients seemed to incorporate easily. After all wet ingredients are mixed thoroughly, add oats and baking soda slowly, adding more oats if necessary to create a "batter" that is moist (but not overly sticky) and easy to handle. Spoon by rounded teaspoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten into rounds. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until cooked--firm, golden, but not too crusty. Let cool on a plate.

My mom is taking care of Cora this morning. Cora lights up when she arrives. She's obsessed with mom's purse and her keys, and will remove and replace her keys millions of times without tiring, each time announcing "keys." They are planning to visit Mockingbird Books this morning, a very cute little bookstore near Green Lake that's been open for about six months. It has a big train set, a piano, a giant giraffe, and a chalkboard table that kids love to draw on. They have story time at 11 every morning except Sunday.

I'm tucked away in our neighborhood coffee shop, enjoying a big cup of black tea. I want to start a new story this week. I've been planning to write about a nearly-retired marine biologist/sailor man. I sat down at the only available table at the shop and set up my computer, got my tea and snuggled down for the morning. As I was logging on, I noticed that I was sitting across from a man who was reading Coastal Tides and Nautical Measurements. He was an older man with a beard and glasses, grey flecked hair, and a weathered face. I decided it was clearly a sign. :)

Friendly people make me happy

B and I didn't sleep very well last night, it seems he's coming down with Cora's cold now, so the night was punctuated by fits of sneezing and lots of tossing and turning. We awoke this morning with bags under our eyes and Oh, it's Monday again already? sentiments.

After a very fussy morning in which I discovered that Cora is cutting a new molar, we headed out the door for a wintery, sunny walk around Green Lake. We've managed to get out for a walk around the lake everyday except yesterday, which has been awesome. It's another spectacular day. Snow, frost, iced puddles, and bright blue sky. As I was packing Cora into her stroller, I noticed another baby in a matching stroller two cars down, his mom getting him all set up. We were both going through the cold day moves: here's your hat, here are your mittens, here are my gloves, wait let me put on my hat, let me zip your coat, let's make sure we remember our keys, are you warm enough? As she was walking by I asked how old her baby was--4 months. Suddenly I missed that little size, those sleepy eyes, the infant car seat stroller setup where you can stare down at your baby the whole time. I asked if she was back to work and she said no, she was at home with him but that it was still a strange transition for her, not making a paycheck and figuring out a new rhythm. We struck up a little conversation and then parted ways. I sort of walked along feeling happy I'd had this nice exchange but also thinking that I was too open, too chatty and exuberant, one of those people you meet and are like Oh geez, I actually just came here to keep my head down and my nose warm, do you mind hurrying along? I have been wanting to meet a few more moms who are at home with their babies, it would be nice to enjoy a bit more of that camaraderie and shared schedules.

Cora enjoyed most of the walk but broke down by the end. After swinging and running around the park, it was time to head home which made her very unhappy. It's the first time in a long while I've had to put a sad, crying Cora into her car seat and just start driving, making promises of tasty lunch and story time ahead. She wanted none of it. I was feeling frazzled and tired when I saw this little scrap of paper under my windshield wiper. I pulled over and lifted it out: "Dear Cora and Mommy, if you'd ever like some company on a walk around the lake, give us a call," with their names and phone number below. I felt so grateful, it totally made my day. It's so unusual for people to do stuff like that. Friendly people make me happy.

An EpiPen? Really?

We had a really tough day this week when Cora inexplicably broke into a rash of hives after lunch. Her face started swelling and she had hives everywhere--all around her eyes, all over her head, behind her ears, covering her stomach. She'd had an odd reaction to dinner the night before, and had broken out in her first-ever rash of hives, just two patches on her stomach, but after a call to the nurse hotline and a healthy dose of Benadryl, she was fine. We checked on her probably twenty times throughout the night and she was still fine by morning. But the next day after we met B for lunch, she fell asleep on the way home. I saw a little hive next to her eye and checked her stomach for them when I changed her diaper and put her into her pajamas. She stayed asleep through the process and snuggled down peacefully for her nap. But she awoke 45 minutes later and after I soothed her back to sleep in my arms, she sat up, hot and sweaty and literally started to break out in white dots in seconds, crying and miserable and pawing at her face. I gave her a dose of Benadryl while I called the nurse hotline again, but as I watched her face begin to swell (she hadn't had any hives on her face the night before), I basically freaked. I dialed 911 and raced over to my neighbor's house, shouting for Michelle while I waited for the ambulance. By the time the fire truck arrived 5 minutes later, the swelling was already beginning to diminish and I was a hiccuping, crying mess. I felt like an idiot with four firemen in my house and Cora looking at them with consternation, no breathing difficulty, just a spotted, slightly swollen lass saying Woof and pointing to next door to Duke, our neighborhood golden retriever. Still, as nincompoopish as I felt at the time, in retrospect I would do the same thing again. I had her in my arms out there, and my perspective was gone--I felt like the planet was misaligned and we were keening off to one side.

Luckily, whatever she was allergic to was very responsive to Benadryl. We went to the doctor that afternoon and got a prescription for an EpiPen and were referred to an asthma/allergy specialist. Now we have to wait for the tests. I have the feeling it's a severe dairy allergy that has been surfacing for awhile, but I really have no idea. Her doctor mentioned it could be a reaction to the rye in the multi-grain (wheat-free) crackers she's been eating. The other possibility is that we had lunch at a Thai place, and while she just ate crackers and cheese and a banana and some steamed broccoli, it's possible that the broccoli they made for her was tainted with a little bit of fish residue, or shellfish residue, or perhaps we kissed her too much after eating spicy food made with fish sauce. Regardless, I have never, ever felt so riled nor so thankful in such a short period of time.

It is scary and strange to carry around an EpiPen wherever we go. I have been talking with my friends who have children with allergies, trying to figure out if her reaction sounds similar to any they've seen. Of course, it's also possible that she was fighting a virus of some kind, but it seems unlikely b/c she didn't have any other symptoms--no fever, no runny nose, nothing else except this severe reaction shortly after her meals. However, it's two days later and she is teething and woke up a cold. I'm not sure there's anything more cute nor sad that her crumpled up little frowning face while she sneezes long rivers of goo out of her nose, then looks up at us and says "Booooo."

Dreaming into being

Following the expired sentiments of the 12/30 post I published last week, this mid-January post is going to sound as if I made enormous strides in just two days. Of course, it's really three weeks since I wrote that last one, and a lot has happened since then. Funny how time can go so fast and you end up on the other side of something, looking back.

We are experiencing SUN here in the Pacific Northwest, a shiny orb in the sky that everyone is pointing at in wonderment. Cora has recently discovered airplanes in a big way and points to them all the time, flapping her hands and chirping like a bird despite my explanations. That's kind of how we are about the sun, all of us racing outside to fit in as many adventures as possible until the haze returns. Yesterday we spent the whole day outside. We woke up and had breakfast and strong tea and coffee, then put Cora in our hiking backpack and walked the 25-some blocks down to the Ravenna trails. We stopped along the way at the new Vios restaurant (a cute, kid-friendly restaurant addition to Third Place Books on 65th and 20th). Brian got an Illy espresso shot and I got a green tea, and then we walked across the closed bridge that crosses the Ravenna watershed ravine, and wandered through the pretty houses over there down to the playground. Cora was obsessed with her shadow, with the turtle sculptures on the lawn, with sliding down the twisty slide (by herself!), and with spinning. I twirled both of us into a dizzy oblivion several times and she kept wanting more! more! more! We walked back along the trails. I think we had one of those mornings when we were just grateful to live where we do, in a fun corner of one of our favorite cities.

Later, after her nap and a tasty lunch, we visited Cora's aunties and their dogs, and then headed over to Discovery Park. The day was so clear that all the mountains were in etched formation beyond the Sound, boats were making their lazy path below, and the sun was shouting until sunset. We mainly ended up wandering through the field above, letting Cora explore the long grasses and exclaim at all the birds and dogs. Then we went grocery shopping and came home and made a big dinner. We were completely exhausted. We felt so old. I think we were in bed at 9 p.m., reading our books, with lights out by 10.

I'm reading a book by Elizabeth Berg, called The Year of Pleasures. I haven't read much by her, I think only The Pull of the Moon a few years back, which I enjoyed. She has a very introspective, narrative style. I tagged a couple of my favorite lines so far, although many are quotable:

"As for me, I liked things that couldn't be explained. I liked outrageous statements of faith; defiant acts of belief that flew in the face of science and practicality" (66).

and

"But was I not here, after all, in an entirely new place, entirely on a whim? Could you not in fact dream some things into being? As much as I wanted to honor the past, to take the time necessary to fully grieve what I had lost, I wanted to lift the lid off the future" (77).

The book is quite calming, despite the premise: a 55-year-old woman relocates to a small Midwest town shortly after her husband's death. At first I read the book with a feeling of tightness across my chest, of reading about a grief I can only imagine. Now I'm enjoying it as a quiet, simple account of starting over slowly. So far I'd say it's worth a visit to the B section when you're next at the library.

Next on the list is The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields, which has come highly recommended over the years and which, at this point at least, I honestly can't remember if I've read or not.

Have you heard the new song by Ben Folds called The Luckiest? My sister-in-law put it on a CD for us this weekend and I started listening to it this morning while curling my way over 70th to Green Lake. It's another sunburst day and we started it with a walk around the lake. From my perch atop the hill in our car shortly before 9 a.m., the water looked like a giant cup of tea in the middle of a bright day. It was completely shrouded in mist, which I thought was just fog burning off but once we started walking I realized was steam from slowly melting frost on the grass and roads, and warming of the water beside us. It was gorgeous to watch the tails of steam rise through skeletal tree branches. Ducks were framed in fog like pockets of old-fashioned photos scattered around the water. Anyway, as we were driving toward the lake, The Luckiest began to play. The lyrics are thoughtful and sweet and simple and they just made my heart swell and become a little lump in my throat. While I have certainly never characterized myself as a stoic, one who keeps much inside very well (or tolerates it entirely well when others do), I still have noticed that in the past few months of writing and being with my daughter all the time, I feel more wide open, a bit more raw, more interested in emotion and love and hunger and stories. Sweet songs stick. I like that.

While the little lass finishes her nap, I am going to work on an alternate ending for my story, the one that seems to be taking me quite a long time to finish, sigh. I just want to send it in and be over with it, but like I told B this weekend, if I got a rejection slip in the mail I'd just say, Well you know, I knew it didn't have a great ending but I sent it in anyway. It would be my built-in excuse and now that I've announced that, I can't send it in till it's fixed. Bah. Then Cora and I are going to head down to the waterfront to wander through the Olympic Sculpture park and to the aquarium to see the fish.


Lyrics to The Luckiest, by Ben Folds:

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

Bye-bye Demons (and thanks, Oma)

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and published it, but didn't feel brave enough to keep it. Sometimes writing feels quite vulnerable. Many thanks to Oma for inspiring me to keep all the honesty in here, tough times and all.

Written Dec. 30 '08:

There's a passage in Eat, Pray, Love when Gilbert wrote about loneliness and depression, how they lurked by her side like demons in Italy:

"'It's not fair for you to come here," I tell Depression. "I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York.'

"But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it" (48).

At one point in the passage, she explains how she just got off antidepressants and wonders if she could have survived without them, but notes that "That's the thing about a human life--there's no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed" (52).

I am not depressed right now. I think tired is the better word. And I am not (nor, actually, have ever been on) antidepressants. But I have definitely battled anxiety and insomnia before. A medication probably would have been useful at some points, especially when I got injured and stopped running. Running was my therapy long before writing became it. I think it was my key to a healthy constitution, the ability to run and run and run every day until I was washed clean through and drained of ghosts. Unfortunately, without running, and with a love of caffeine, one of my first responses to stress is an inability to sleep. It's a problem because not being able to sleep is like sliding down a slick spiral. You're basically just waiting for morning when you can stop trying so damn hard, and then night returns and you have to battle through it all over again. If I didn't have a baby, wasn't responsible for her well being and happiness, I would just give in to insomnia when it visits, pick a good book and stay up all night if I needed to. I did that a few times in grad school and one morning, after not sleeping for a week and reading a book through the night, I was a bleary mess. I put on my running shoes and ran around Lake Merritt. That was a terrifically bad way to deal with a knee injury, and after running 6 miles without any warm up or training, I reinjured myself and was back to walking hills in Piedmont.

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about variables--what makes a life, a life. I just recently encountered again the realization that there's this trigger that I haven't figured out how to stop. As B says, I haven't filled my toolbox with the right tools. It happens for a specific reason, which isn't worth going into here, but all the good feelings and strength just blow out of me and I start to question everything.

When I go through times like this, I question myself. It's my first response. I don't think that's always a bad thing. I think it's important to question ourselves. It's just that some people question the world, hit angrily at the circumstances around them; I seem to turn against myself. Last night B said he thinks I doubt myself too much these days. He's right. It's like Doubt and Worry are my bedfellows during stressful times, taking turns pulling at my hair and insidiously wandering into my head. The feeling of being derailed is visceral. I think I invited those emotions in one time and forgot to tell them they were no longer needed, no longer welcome.

I need to grow up, grow out of it, heave it off my shoulders, go through a transformation and just throw all the crap far, far away.

I'm really ready for that. Maybe Doubt and Worry have become like little dependable appendages. Like built-in crutches that I rediscover every time I am stressed--Oh, here they are! My default responses! Let's go have a party and hang out, just the three of us, and we can spend the next few days spiraling into a state of misery and dejection!

I wondered if I was going to write about this. It appears that I have. :) I'm sorry to drag you through my midafternoon therapy session. But I guess I think it's safe to say that most of us have, at one point or another, battled our own fears and injuries, similar feelings of loss and confusion, all in our own personal ways. I guess that's one of the reasons I feel like writing about this. Being human is hard sometimes. Life wouldn't really be interesting if it wasn't. We all have our conflicts and our questions.

So, I want to know: Can it be done? Can we decide to live differently, from the inside out--really, really from the inside? Start today, start now, do it flamboyantly?

I remember a quote, something about how we are injured not so much by what other people do to us but by our own emotional responses. I think childhood difficulties are more complex because when you're a kid it's really hard to be zen and sort of look around you and put it all in perspective. But it's different when we're adults. I wonder, can we rewrite our past--not by turning a blind eye on the bad stuff, but by highlighting the good instead--and watch it slowly and dramatically affect our present?

If so, then let today be the day that I say goodbye to doubt and worry and self-incrimination, so that I give as much love and energy and focus to living an intentioned life as I give to my daughter.

Is it that simple? I'm going to give it a try and see.

Cora just woke up and I am finishing this while she reads her book. She has rosy red, milk-fed cheeks, sleep-glossed eyes and a cute little smile. She just got up and is trying to tap on my keyboard. She keeps saying bye-bye. I guess she wants me to stop this silly typing. We're going to get out of the house and give this intentioned life a try.

Obama's letter to his girls

Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have. But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me — about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential — schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college — even if their parents aren't rich. And I want them to get good jobs: jobs that pay well and give them benefits like health care, jobs that let them spend time with their own kids and retire with dignity.

I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you'll live to see new technologies and inventions that improve our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer. And I want us to push our own human boundaries to reach beyond the divides of race and region, gender and religion that keep us from seeing the best in each other.

Sometimes we have to send our young men and women into war and other dangerous situations to protect our country — but when we do, I want to make sure that it is only for a very good reason, that we try our best to settle our differences with others peacefully, and that we do everything possible to keep our servicemen and women safe. And I want every child to understand that the blessings these brave Americans fight for are not free — that with the great privilege of being a citizen of this nation comes great responsibility.

That was the lesson your grandmother tried to teach me when I was your age, reading me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and telling me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something.

She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better — and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us. It's a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.

I hope both of you will take up that work, righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you've had. Not just because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that has given our family so much — although you do have that obligation. But because you have an obligation to yourself. Because it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.

These are the things I want for you — to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world. And I want every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive that you girls have. That's why I've taken our family on this great adventure.

I am so proud of both of you. I love you more than you can ever know. And I am grateful every day for your patience, poise, grace, and humor as we prepare to start our new life together in the White House.

Love, Dad

It has to be said

I'm all atwitter tonight because we're in the process of possibly refinancing our home and I just walked through the application today and our broker will shop it around tomorrow. The reasons? I'm excited because rates really are quite low. But I got a bit riled up when reality stared me in the face: I am on the application but I don't have any income to report.

Let me be clear. This is not a surprise. It's something I thought through before quitting my job. The feminine mistake, so to speak. The hanging out there in the wind without an income of my own, without contributing financially to our lives. This isn't something new to consider, it just felt tangible for the first time today. I wanted to be able to state an income and I couldn't.

It's hard to feel that vulnerable, especially when you have read all the feminist literature I've read, and when you come from a divorced family. It's less easy to be an idealist about it all, more easy to look at it and see the vulnerabilities. For the first time today, I couldn't just walk away from the judgment I was placing on myself. The thing is, I would gladly work so that B could stay home. Maybe I will do that someday.

Incidentally, I was at the playground this afternoon and I talked with a dad and his 17-month-old daughter. They moved out here for his wife's job and she recently got laid off. He was in a planned transitional time and was looking for a job, but now the are both jobless. These are scary times. It's a lot of pressure.

So this is when it is easier to dive into melodrama without thinking. It's better to take things a day at a time and keep focused. It just feel like it's all the more important for me to work hard at writing, to use every available minute to push myself. To kiss Cora adamantly and make sure she knows she's worth it. Sometimes time just feels so damn fast.

Cora

Friday and feeling groovy

This has been a wonderful week. We've stayed busy with a bunch of fun activities, and we are both much more happy. Long live snow-free winters! (At least for us, maybe if we didn't live on a hill and we had 4-wheel drive we'd be fine.) We did something new every day, and that was good for both of us. The most delightful part is that Cora continues to communicate. She's beginning to try to parrot things, not a ton of words yet (and still only ones that I can understand, I think) but this week she's recognizably said shoes and cheese and bath, apples and bananas, wolves (and their requisite howls), birds (and their wings and song), outside, draw, book, pizza, and then yesterday we went through a list of things together until we found her preferred activity: going to the park to SWING. What I love the most is that moment when we realize that I understand her and she understands me and we lock eyes and start giggling. She is an adamant head shaker when she is letting me know what she does not does not does not want to do.

Yesterday we went to Gymboree for a tumble, then we went to the library for story time (she had the attention span to get through the songs, the stretching, and some of the sirens in the fireman story), then to the park for SWINGING and on the merry-go-round and jumping into my arms from this big rock sculpture garden at Dahl Field. We ate a big lunch and she napped about an hour and a half, and then went downstairs and worked on our super important cardboard box fort. I went to PCC the other day and asked if I could have their display box out front, one of those big octagonal boxes for apples and squash and such, and the guy gave it to me. He was exceptionally nice, took out the remaining oranges (there weren't a ton, otherwise I would have felt like a total ass), folded it up and put it in our car. It even has a ceiling with slots in it for mini-skylights. I added a door and windows. She has a little lounge in there, a pillow and blanket and a couple of books and a ukulele. It looks like a mini dorm room, like she could invite some friends over to her pad and light incense, put daisies in her hair and strum her guitar and read deep poetry and stuff.

Today we finally got out for a walk with our friends, and Cora said "Anna" all the way over to their house and back. It's been raining like crazy here. Normally I would have braved it and just gotten out anyway but the winds have been so strong that it has truly been the last thing I wanted to do. Yesterday afternoon we headed over the neighborhood community center and I saw this teenage guy walking away from the bus stop. It was pouring rain, like full-throttle windshield wiper rain. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, no coat, and was still trudging along with a pronounced strut, looked totally unfazed, and I was thinking that's what it's like to grow up in Seattle. Life as a child is covered with rain. It's all muddy fields and indoor pools, full-body rain suits and rubber boots, trudging along on a grey day with rain swimming down your pale face and still trying to look cool.

I finished my story yesterday. Or at least I finished the first draft. It still needs some major editing. It's 35 pages double-spaced and with some serious tightening I think I can trim it down a bit. We'll see. I plan to submit it someplace by the end of next week. I'm looking forward to starting the next one. I think it might start on an airplane and have a crossover with one of the characters in this story, but I'm not totally sure yet. That's one of the things I enjoyed the most about writing this one (even though it was a bit frustrating there for awhile)--I never knew how it was going to end until it did. I thought it was going to be one story and it turned into something else. It's gratifying when that happens, when it seems to take on a life of its own.

Speaking of which, I am going to go take another look at this draft and do a quick round of edits before Cora wakes up. Ah, napping. One of my friends gave me this ABC book when Cora was born called Awake to Nap by Nikki McClure, and it was written and illustrated during her son's naps. It only goes from A-M because it's as far as she got during that stage of motherhood. Pretty cute idea, and one I can relate to.

Rolling along

This week is better than last. I sort of fell off the apple cart and rolled under a tree. But I feel as if we have re-established a cadence, Cora and I, that works best when I make sure to write. That's one of the chief reasons I have felt so foggy lately, I think. It was the holidays, and then there was snow, and then Cora's nap schedule was thrown off, and then I felt more interested in talking with B while he was home, and then I got in touch with a bunch of old friends through facebook, and then I got sick, and then it was the weekend and finally, yesterday, we started the week with a firm shake: Well shoot, we might as well do something interesting with ourselves. That's where I am reminded of the importance of just doing it, for crikey sake. Publishing silly posts, writing something, anything, even if it's bad, just to keep the momentum going. It's different with the story I'm writing. I hesitate to do that, otherwise I might make a bunch of wrong turns and the story would just sort of rot in the middle and I'd get lost and wouldn't be able to figure out the ending.

I think, maybe, I'm getting close to the end with the story. I just wrote what could, potentially be the last paragraph but I'm not sure it's satisfying enough. It's about 15 pages single spaced, which is a rather long short story, and I have been wondering whether its really a novella or a confused novel, or whether I'm just having a hard time plucking out a few moments in time and leaving all the other stuff up to the imagination.

Cora is changing so much. I am finally getting more used to her words, realizing how easy it would be to fail completely at plucking meaning from the babble. She says something all the time that sounds like pasta, but I have no idea what it is. I can't imagine trying to say things for the first time, wondering if I'm using my tongue correctly, pursing my lips accurately. Today I asked her to say cheese and she said "sheeeez." She said "baple" for apple and she refused to say cheesy bread. She loves to say ball. She says dod instead of dog, and often just refers to them as woof. I don't know why it's never occurred to me until now, but that's pretty good articulation considering she has six teeth.

Speaking of which, she doesn't take 2-hour naps anymore, she's more on a 1-hour schedule and she's in there yapping about pasta or aaasta or blasta, so I should go now. :)

New Year

You know how sometimes you start the day feeling so totally energized and alive, ready for anything? That's not how I started this year. I think of it as more of a slow roll into a new phase, sort of like hitting the snooze button a hundred times and then grumpily getting out of bed and being dissatisfied with what's for breakfast. It's too bad, I felt like I had a lot of momentum going there for awhile. This week ain't it.

I made a few resolutions this year. One of the main ones is to let go of the past and forgive people who need to be forgiven. I've always wondered about that--can you forgive without forgetting? I've decided it is possible, after going through a similar process with my dad, but for some odd reason it was easier to do that with my dad than it is to do with other people in my life. Anyway, I actually wrote a stupendously long post about this whole topic earlier this week but then deleted it. Writing it was helpful, it reminded me of a few things about myself. The main gist of my goals for this year, though, are to let go of old crap that holds me down, and to try to do a better job of moving through life with kindness and grace and honesty, while keeping my focus on people's best selves.

How's that for a mini post about a micro personal issue?

I'm excited about this year, and am wishing all of you a very happy transition to '09!