The Final Mylestone (subtitled: It's over when the skinny boy plays the recorder)

Lately, I recoil at the idea of writing here like a skittish old cat, not trusting the sound of my voice, unwilling to venture even one foot forward. So I pad back into the shadows, waiting for a clear coast or a courageous surge. Neither of which seems to be forthcoming.

This won't be a dramatic goodbye. It isn't a screeching halt. The stories I've told here are the slow dripping sand of an hour glass. It's been a very long time, and we've had a good many stories. I just think it might be time to turn the glass over, to start again.

More than five years of life I've simmered here in words, boiling it all down in search of substance, like a pound of beans that soak and spin and cook for hours on end. Eventually, the water evaporates and the beans grow tender. And you can't leave the burner on forever, not unless you want to ruin the beans and stink up the house. You guys, these days my words are at most a mist, and my heart is fall-apart tender. It's just time.

After I figure out how to preserve the blog in print for my own benefit, I plan on taking it down completely.  It might as well be purged from Google search results before the kids hit their teen years and need therapy. Really, I think my recent discomfort with this space is almost entirely driven by the need for more anonymity, a little shawl of it for me and a complete cloak of it for my children.

Whether with the help of ink or the internet,  I'll continue to write. And if you're so inclined, you can follow any future online writing here. (It's really just a placeholder right now--not much content yet. But I've set it up so you can subscribe via email or a reader, and then when I get going again, you'll hear about it automatically.)

This is probably the part of the show where I should get all weepy and sentimental about the very last milestone on Mylestones. Because we know it's not over until the fat lady sings and the sappy mom cries.

But I hate to be so cliche, so I fired the fat lady and cast a skinny eight year old boy to play us out with a jaunty tune on his recorder. I'll spare you the audio and just tell you it's Hot Cross Buns, and it would totally make you cry.

The End.

Read more...

And then I played doll house

Even with my own children, the two people in the world I am most predisposed to love, even with them I fall so incredibly short.

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal....Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Yesterday I startled myself with the sound of my own voice, sharp and exasperated, volume rising with every word. I don't even remember what I was yelling about, only that it was maybe the fifteenth power struggle of the day and I was so over getting lip from my stubborn six year old.

After our collective meltdown, I kept hearing that passage in my head (yeah, that one, the "love chapter", the cliche wedding reading, the one I like to quote to my kids when they aren't being nice to each other). And somewhere in the hours that followed I came to a humbling conclusion.

I don't love my children. Not consistently. Not the way I should. 

Sure, I adore them and enjoy them. I find them delightful at times. I would go to any length to protect them. I'd die for them, if it came to that.

And what's ridiculous is how I say I'd give my life for them, yet I struggled to give my daughter just thirty minutes of my Sunday to play doll house. (Have I mentioned how I hate playing doll house?) I became irritable and resentful when their needs and requests conflicted with my own. And I'd rather not give examples, but suffice it to say: my heart wasn't patient, and my voice wasn't kind.

(By the way you guys, falling flat on your figurative face? So not fun. I don't recommend it.)

I can correct their behavior, even quote verses while I'm doing it, but have not love. Clangity clang clang.  I can feed, clothe, read, drive, teach, listen, speak. But if I do it resentfully, irritably, impatiently, without love at the center. Yep. Clangy McClangerton.

So I asked my little girl to forgive me. I told my son I'd messed up, that I hadn't modeled what love was supposed to look like, that I 'd been selfish and impatient.

They forgave me, like they always do.
I told them I loved them, so, so much.
And then I played doll house.

Just writing today, with Heather. 

Read more...

Taking cover

Ever since she unwrapped her very own Hello Kitty umbrella from Nana and Papa, she's been asking me about the forecast. "It might rain tomorrow, right? Well, can you just check your phone again, just in case?"

This morning, she insisted on riding the bus. She insisted on bringing her umbrella. Her brother wasn't ready when the bus came, so I drove him, arriving at the same time as the bus. I watched from several yards away as my little girl stepped off the bus, not a drop of rain in the sky. I watched her struggle to open up her umbrella. When she finally, proudly unfurled her newest accessory, you couldn't miss her wide smile from a mile away.

I saw her strut toward the school doors, umbrella twirling. I was too far away to see for sure; but it seemed as if when she passed the police officer--the man in blue who's been greeting the children at the front entrance since Monday--it seemed like he tipped his hat to the little girl with the wide smile and the pink umbrella.

I was grateful to see him there, comforted even. Whether it does anything to deter the danger, I don't know. We still control so very little of our days and of what might fall from the sky.

But sometimes, it feels good to take cover, even when the rain isn't falling.

Read more...

Six

She skips nearly everywhere she goes. This particular time it's to the fridge and back.

"See Mama, I'll show you. Here's my schedule. NO gym on Tuesdays. So see! I can wear my fancy shoes and fancy dress tomorrow for my birthday!"

Still skipping, now waving the yellow paper. It's only a few yards, a few seconds, but it's enough for me to choke back tears.

"C'mere, Darlin'. Give me a hug. I can't believe you're gonna be SIX!"
"Well, I can't believe you're gonna be 88!"
She waves her magic words, abracadabra, turning watery eyes into belly laughs.
"I'm not that old, silly goose!"

I hug her, probably too tightly. I read too much detail today, saw too many faces that looked far too much like hers. And I don't know whether I want to sob with grief because those children are gone or cry with gratitude because mine isn't.

So I do both.

Six years old is a delightful, beautiful, sound-out-chapter-books and skip everywhere age.
Six years old is believing in Santa, bossing the dog around and buttering your own toast (or at least making a valiant effort).
Six years old is knowing exactly which tights you want to wear, but maybe still needing just a little help to put them on.
Six years old is hands cupped over mouth in excitement, hands on hips in defiance, hands laced in mama's when the path feels momentarily too big to tread alone.

Six years old is where I find most of what's right with the world.

My little monkey is six. 

Read more...

What Jane Austen, mint M&Ms and skating parties have in common

You know what's better than a Jane Austen book? A Jane Austen book dripping with sarcasm. I found her satire Northanger Abbey in the freebies section of Good Reads and thought, "Hey, I can add this to that collection of classics on my iPad that I intend to read during the kids' piano lessons but never do because I'm mindlessly trolling Facebook instead."

(See also: that one summer I resolved to finally read Middlemarch in its entirety and made it a whopping five pages before I found myself clicking through a virtual shoe rack to confirm my suspicion that all of my dressy shoes were so dated that the hipster types are probably already wearing them ironically.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey. This quote:

"To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

I know, right? I don't care if you weren't a big Jane fan before. You pretty much have to love her now.

::

I'm going to share a quick little list of things I'm thankful for, because unique and original and totally not cliche are the top three ways to describe me. I know because they were the first three words I found in that whimsical word search activity going around on Facebook.

(Does anyone else have the urge to create and distribute a much meaner version of this little game? Like, throwing in a few insults and expletives just to keep it fair? Stuff like lazyarss or narcissist or puppyhater or whyaren'tyoureadingMiddlemarchyoushallowlittleloser? No? Yeah me neither. I don't even have to time to think up such silly ideas. I'm too busy reading Middlemarch.)

But back to the thankful list. (Please for the LOVE, back to the thankful list). No particular order and by no means exhaustive:

• for free classics, clean water, warm coats, and that mint M&Ms are back in season
• that the roller skating party is over, that my five year old had the time of her life at the aforementioned party, for her fierce independence that had her waving me off within minutes of standing up on skates
• for my sensitive little eight year old, for books that sweep us into story and sway even a tired old mom into reading just one more chapter long after lights should be out, for his self awareness and sense of humor, for our 20 minute chats while we circle eight times around the track
• for friends who bring me back to who I said I wanted to be, to what I said I believed, for those who walk (and sometimes run) with me through the mess, who make me laugh so hard I can barely remember why I wanted to cry

I've opened the floodgates. I start typing and I could go on forever. Gratitude is crazy that way--you can start by saying you're glad about Boston cremes and Christmas Ale and then with each thing you list, the spiral stake twists deeper and deeper until you are grounded in gratitude, unshakeable, discovering that the grace and goodness of God spans from the most trivial to the most trying places.

So what are you thankful for today? Open the floodgates, my friends.

Read more...

The doubting season

Every day the darkness creeps in earlier and earlier. And no matter how fervently I believe in a sun still out there shining--somewhere and surely bright--because I see so much less of it, well, it makes me wonder. I want to see that beautiful brilliant sun with my own eyes, but I'm not in the right place to see it. After all, this is Ohio we're talking about. So I trust it's still out there. But 95% of the time, I don't feel as if it really is.

From Sara Miles in Take this Bread:

"In large ways and small, I wrestled with Christianity: its grand promises and its petty demands, its temptations and hypocrisies and promises, its ugly history and often insufferable adherents. Faith for me didn't provide a set of easy answers or certainties: It raised more questions than I was ever comfortable with......
But this is my belief: that at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak and transform us. As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak even to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering, blaming hellfire of the religious right. What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new.....
Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical "proof". It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act."

I think about God the way I think about the winter sun. There, always. And shining brilliant. It's just that sometimes I'm in the perfectly wrong place to see even a speck of it. So I trust, and wait for summer.

Read more...

Rusty

When I think about this space, I see wet leaves sticking to a tractor, more rusty than red. I left it out in the rain, uncovered, unvarnished. If I'm not going to put it to use, I should at least cover it. But when I see it outside my window on my way to doing something else, I only sigh. I'll take care of it tomorrow, I think. And now it seems only an eyesore, something I should clear from the yard.

I began telling stories here before she was a year old, before he was potty trained, before big girl beds and little boy bikes, before I felt like something other than an overtired mother, before I remembered who I was.

I used to write my way to calm and connection. I found both here, tilling stubborn soil until it became ground from which I could grow. This weekend I spent the better part of the day with a local friend I first met through blogging. Our whole families were together for nearly six hours, and it felt like fifteen minutes. If this was the only fruit that grew from this space, it would've been enough.

But there was so much more.
I found mythic moments in the mundane.
I found ways to laugh and smile when I wanted to cry and hide.
I found my voice.
I found I wasn't alone.

My children are eight and nearly six now. Unfathomable to me, but true. I started telling their stories five years ago, and out of their stories, found the courage to tell my own. But now....now it's not that I've run out of stories. It's just that so very few of them feel like they are mine to tell anymore. I feel an increasing urge to shield my children from overexposure.

As for my own stories, I'm struggling to find time to tell them, so engrossed I've become in living them. Maybe that's a sorry excuse on my part. Maybe I'm just not brave or diligent or dogged enough to keep tilling the soil. Maybe. But whether my reason is one of wisdom or cowardice, this seems like it might be the season to let the earth lie fallow.

I won't shut this place down, not yet anyway. I'll continue to write as I feel the urge, when I find the time. I just came here today because, well, because I felt like I ought to explain why there's a rusty old tractor in the yard.

Just writing today, with Heather.

Read more...

In which I make peace with being crazy (aka: the race report)

Even though the last time I checked this was supposed to be a blog about the children, it seems I've allowed myself some editorial license and made it all about me, me, me and also me. A surefire way to discourage readership, no doubt. In the meantime, the kids have been saying and doing all sorts of cute and memorable things, but I'm going to save those stories for another time because I have some life-altering riveting , (what, not even mildly interesting?)  news to report.


I confessed last week to being a sand bagger, particularly when it comes to running. It goes something like this:
1) Set easy, achievable goals.
2) Achieve them, easily.
3) Feel proud of yourself for roughly 24 hours.
4) Celebrate that night with guacamole and margaritas.
5) Repeat cycle.

For some reason (cough--Salty--cough), I decided to break this perfectly enjoyable cycle and start a new one. It goes something like this.
1) Set difficult, seemingly impossible goals.
2) Work your tail off only to miss the goal by a small enough margin that you start to believe it IS achievable.
3) Feel permanently more proud of yourself for digging deep and failing than you ever have for sailing into easy success.
4) Immediately begin scheming about the next opportunity to meet aforementioned stretch goal.
5) Celebrate that night with guacamole and margaritas. (Because clearly, there are some parts of the cycle that don't need fixing.)

Coming off my spring half marathon, I decided my next goal was to shave two minutes from my time to come in around 1:45. My stretch goal was to run a pace under 8:00 minutes per mile (roughly 1:44:30).

But then I met Salty.
And we started running together.
And she started giving me advice.
And I started listening.
And it was all uphill from there, folks...

So when I toed the line in my fall half marathon yesterday, I was shooting for a sub-1:40 and a 7:38 pace. (What the whah? Four years ago I was patting myself on the back for finishing a 5k under a 10 minute mile pace. So yeah, the question who the freak do I think I am comes to mind.)

I'll cut to the chase (which I probably should've done five paragraphs ago). I gave it everything I had in the half marathon yesterday, and missed my stretch goal by 2 minutes. Official time was 1:42:02, a 7:48 minute mile pace. But with the race in its first year and a relatively small turnout, that time turned out to be enough to win my age group and place 6th for women overall. I'll take it!

Several times over the course of those 13.1 miles, I desperately wanted to back off the aggressive pace. The course had several hills--the sort of hills that when people ask "is this the hill you want to die on?", you pipe back a resounding "YES!".  There was also the matter of the wind, the kind of wind that makes Mary Poppins curse and severely complicates forward motion.

The last mile consisted of a long, low-grade incline against 20+ mph gusts. My shoes turned into bricks and I felt fairly certain that paying money to put myself through this torture was one of the most ridiculous and insane things I'd ever done.

But you know what else is insane? Running a half marathon at a faster pace than I could run just ONE mile at HALF my age. So yeah. I think I can make peace with being crazy.

Read more...

In which I'm going for it

I'm going to race a half marathon in a little over a week. Not run it--race it. I've set an "A goal" that scares the shitake out of me, and while it's nowhere in the vicinity of a local elite time, it requires me to step up into "an elite version of myself" (as a fellow runner so eloquently put it).

I'm scared. Which is weird and makes me feel ridiculous. Because it's just a road race. Nothing's on the line. The outcome doesn't matter in any way, shape or form. I can't explain why I care as much as I do, why I'm holding this goal so tightly. The caring makes me feel foolish and vulnerable and like I should make a joke about how I run simply for the love of margaritas and cheese. But the truth is I (mostly) gave up alcohol and ice cream for the last two weeks in hopes that better nutrition would mean I could run faster. See what I mean? I simply can't explain why I care this much. (Giving up ice cream? How seriously messed up is that?)

I'm a lifelong sandbagger with a penchant for avoiding failure and life along with it. And this race, well, it's quite possibly the first time I've ever, of my own volition, stepped up to the start of anything knowing there is as much a chance of failure as success.

I feel like I'm flirting concurrently with disaster and breakthrough. I have only a vague idea of what my limits are, but know with certainty they'll be tested when I race next week. I know that if I do it right, it's going to hurt for the better part of 13.1 miles. I know that if I do it right, I'll be making the ugly face for so long that there's a high probability of it freezing that way. (Again, the sane 1% of my brain has to ask--why am I doing this!?)

I'm scared. About a race that has zero meaning in the overall scheme of things. And yes, it's weird and makes me feel ridiculous and melodramatic. But it also makes me feel alive and excited and maybe even slightly courageous.

So no more sandbagging. I'm saying it here so I don't wuss out. When the time comes to toe the line, I'm going all in.

Read more...

Monkey {Just Write}

There's a reason we've called her "Monkey" since before she was born. She began by swinging from my ribs, and every day since, she's squirmed, flipped, wriggled, leaped, launched, twisted and cartwheeled from one hour to the next.

She swings by her knees when she wants to feel free, and climbs me like a tree when she wants to be held. 

When she was around three years old, she insisted she wasn't just Monkey anymore. She was Monkey Princess, and we were instructed to address her accordingly. She mimicked her brother's karate forms with a rendition of her own "Monkey Princess Form", in a tutu of course. I recall a good deal of kicking and arm flailing, with an occasional shout of "Mooonkeeeey Priiiinceeeessss!!!" and then a hurling of her tiara like a Chinese star halfway across the playroom. Being the wise parents we were, we took the tiara away until she was old enough to refrain from using it as a weapon.

At four, she gave us the okay to drop the princess label, so we're back to calling her plain old Monkey again.

I bemoan to my friends about her insistence on wearing a dress 360 days out of the year. I contrast my hatred of pink with her love of it, my tomboy leanings with her girly-girl obsessions.  I joke that I have to take her over to Auntie 'Chelle's to get her hair done or her nails painted, because lord knows her mother doesn't have a clue. I exchange mortified looks with her father when she says she'd rather  be a cheerleader than a soccer player.

Truth be told, she baffles, exasperates, and bewilders me.
Truth be told, she amazes me.

I love you, Monkey.

Read more...

In which we celebrate eight years

Read more...

I Think It's Mornin' Time {Just Write}

He's talking to the dog at the bottom of the stairs, whispering, "go, go, c'mon, go on up...", and I think he's saying "Jo, Jo...", so I get up and scowl at him from the top of the stairs for waking me up at 4:45 a.m.  The dog is like, Oh great, I'm glad I have you both up. I've been meaning to talk to you about the lack of treats and the fact that I've destroyed all the tennis balls and I'll be needing some new ones pronto.

We figure out the little misunderstanding after I snipe at him about why he thought it was cool to wake me up an hour before the alarm. He laughs when he realizes it, and I hurrumph.

A half hour later, the boy calls from his room. Another nightmare, the kind moms are supposed to come running for. I fall back to sleep with my arm draped around his bony shoulders, and then I begin my own bad dream.

I'm on my way to work, wearing my pajamas. I'm driving my old Maxima, the one from the 80s with the talking lady who would tell me the door was ajar when it wasn't, the one that had a trick for doing just about everything, including keeping the door from becoming ajar. The kids are with me, and I can't remember where the daycare/school is. I keep getting lost in shady parts of a town which is 1/3 Pittsburgh, 1/3 Cleveland and 1/3 DC,  with my kids in my unreliable car, and then I realize I have to go back home anyway because I can't drop them off or go to work in my pajamas. It's already 8:30 at this point, and I am starting to figure out that I haven't made childcare arrangements at any facility in Ohio.

I make it home to our temporary lodging (a condo of some sort), and my husband is rearranging all of our belongings into huge piles in the middle of the floor, looking for his pager. I confess to forgetting to register the kids for childcare and to riding all over town in my pajamas and to not being sure where my office even is. "No one said this was going to be easy," he tells me. And then, "Where did you put my pager?" I wish my subconscious would have been snarky enough to retort, "I just drove all over town in my pajamas looking for a school that doesn't exist, and you're counting on me to know where your pager is?"

I wake up to the sound of my alarm coming from the room where I was supposed to be sleeping. I hurry back to hit snooze and to hide under the covers for ten more minutes. Five minutes later, I feel my daughter's breath on my face. I open my eyes, and there she is, bright-eyed and a solid three years older than the little girl in my dream, "Mama," she whispers, "I think it's mornin' time."

Yes, darling. I believe you're right. Now, let's get dressed. I feel like I've been wearing these pajamas for days.

(Also? To wake up and sigh in big relief that I still have the life I have, that's a pretty good reason to look up and whisper thank you at least a dozen times before the bus comes.)

::

Just writing (again) with Heather.

Read more...

In which I just write (and pack away the thoughts about packing it all up)

The talking has begun again about the moving and the to wherewillitbe. Sometimes I go down the Target aisles thinking about whether to buy a couple of the made-in-China plastic storage tubs. I debate whether to start the packing/organizing/donating now or just put it off until I'm ready to face the basement spiders and the fact that my two year old boy is days away from his eighth birthday. 

I've been meaning to pack the Thomas the Train stuff up for two years. But then the almost-eight year old and his little sister played with it yesterday. And then they made the sad pouty faces when I talked about packing it up. 

"BUT MAAW-UUUM," they pleaded, "We play with those ALL THE TIME!" No, not all the time. Only on the day after I was thinking about packing it all up. The all-the-time-obsession with Thomas was actually when you were three years old, which I sometimes think you still are, until I see you out on the soccer field acting like you actually know the definition of word midfielder.

But I get it, I really do. All it takes is one little conversation about leaving Ohio and I start my own little list of people and places I love too much to leave. The thought of packing it all away and saying goodbye only makes me want to hold on tighter. So I guess it won't hurt to leave the trains out a little  longer.

::

I promised them we'd go to the Great Big Fair, the one for which all the kids in the county get a day off from school to show their animals and do 4-H-ish stuff, whatever that even means.  I promised for two years in a row, "We'll go before we move! Don't worry! We'll go!" This was my last year to make good on the promise, so I did.

They loved it of course. (The fair is definitely not my favorite. But I love them, and so I loved it vicariously.) For the record, I actually did have a pretty good time on the ferris wheel.

Then a couple days later we all ran a race, and the boy won his age group, and I won mine. The best part was when we ran a "cool-down" mile together. Never mind that his race had been over for an hour and he didn't need to cool down. It was the togetherness thing that got me.  Just me and my little boy, jogging along and debriefing about our races. I remember thinking how it won't be long before the roles are reversed, before he'll be the one slowing down for me. I remember thinking that this was a holy (albeit sweaty) moment, if ever there was one.

And then I had a birthday, and the next thing I know I'm wearing high heels and drinking a cucumber margarita on a school night. My husband thinks social media is 100 percent lame, and I want to agree with him. He thinks if you laugh your arse off with your best friend on your 30-somethingth birthday at the mod-Mex place, and no one hears it/ likes it on Facebook, it's still real. I want to agree with him, but then the 12 year old in me (the one who apparently has a host of validation issues) still needs to check in and get a lot of likes in order to be artificially affirmed.

My daughter, the one who literally skipped to the finish line of her one mile race in 13 minutes and change, she clearly doesn't give a crap about winning or validation. She seems only to want to get her way and to boss me and the dog around. Oh, and to wear pink and be fancy. But out of the blue, she told me this afternoon, "I just love you, Mama, even though you aren't very fancy most of the time."

Good enough, smart enough, but not quite fancy enough...

And just like that, I have all the affirmation I need.

Read more...

In which losing races makes me feel like less of a loser

Before my son was born, my dad jokingly asked my husband if we would promise to give him athletic grandchildren. My husband curled the left side of his lips upward and winked at me. "I don't know about athletic," he replied, "but they'll be competitive."

When we were 20 and 22, engaged to be married and determined to be grown-ups, we made a pact never to play Scrabble again. This, after I dramatically sent letters flying into all four corners of the dorm lounge. Because, dammit, he was cheating. Or maybe he was just pulling out all the stops and the Qs to make sure he beat me. Same diff.

I can be a bit...howshallwesay...intense.  Or so I'm told by my cheating (but just in Scrabble!) husband. In years past, I've had plenty of acceptable outlets for this not particularly endearing quality, the foremost of which was my job as an evil HR executive. But for the past two years, while I've been loafing around as a stay-at-home mom, this success-driven, competitive, type-A personality is not so useful or applicable. Which--if I'm going to be honest--makes me feel like a bit of a loser.

I know, I know. Go ahead and lecture me about how meaningful and beautiful it is to mold the lives of young children by cutting the crust off their grilled cheese sandwiches while reminding them that showing love to each other is more important than being right about whether there such a thing as a "boy" ladybug. And I will nod my head in violent agreement. But that doesn't make this messed-up hard-wiring go away. I still want to accomplish Big Things, to get an A+ in every subject in the universe, and to be the All Time Champion (of Something) for Whom All Shall Continuously Applaud with Deep and Abiding Admiration.

So with this neurosis as a backdrop, I realize as my kids begin playing sports competitively that I either (a) need to cultivate an outlet of my own or (b) need to have a lobotomy. Because so help me, I will not be that mom who competes vicariously through her children--be it academically, socially, athletically, or facebookially. (Beauty pageants of course are an exception to this rule. Because my kids are clearly more gorgeous than anyone elses' kids, and who turns down an easy win?)

But seriously, you guys. I do need a healthy outlet for my annoying competitive self, something beyond Scrabble or whatever the cool kids play these days (Words with Friends?). And here's the thing I realized yesterday morning on my long run--I already have my outlet.

Over the past year, it seems running has become my thing, the one area in my life with measurable results, the place where comparing my performance to that of another doesn't automatically make me a jerk. Like, you know, just as an example, when I switch from an easy run to a speed workout as soon as the teen with the local high school lacrosse shirt hops on the treadmill next to me acting like he's tough shit. (And yes, little dude, I am old enough to be your mother and lookie there, I just lapped you and made it look easy.)

With running, I can race against the clock, against the random girl in the hot pink compression socks, even against the pregnant lady. And when the pregnant lady beats me by a significant margin? I can track her down and introduce myself. We can become running friends, run a race together, and she can beat me again. And when this sort of thing happens, it energizes me. Even though technically I'm still a loser, I feel like less of one because I'm competing, striving, testing my limits, and discovering a strength I didn't think I had. Hence, I have my outlet.

Yesterday my son had his first "U8 travel" soccer game. And by "travel", we just mean that the parents pay higher fees and the boys begin to move beyond the beehive model of play.  I'll be honest -- I was worried about us both. As my husband promised my father, our son is competitive and intense. He hates to lose, and has been known to cry after every loss of any kind. And I believe we've covered his mother's similar tendencies ad naseum, so yes, I had some legitimate cause for concern.

But it turned out I didn't need to worry. I didn't make a fool of myself, unless you count the jumping up and tossing my umbrella backward and squealing like a lunatic about a goal that was scored only in my imagination. (I swear it looked like it went in!) The boys played hard, made some great passes and plenty of mistakes; and they lost. My son came toward me after the game as I folded up the chairs, smiling as wide as his little face allowed. He told me that wearing a "real uniform" and playing positions made him feel like he was a professional soccer player, and that he almost didn't care about losing because it was so much fun to play a real game.  "Know what I mean, Mom?"

Yep, Buddy, I totally do.

::

Footnotes and Disclaimers:

1. Laura, I'm sorry I keep calling you "the pregnant lady." You are much more to me now than just the pregnant lady. Now you are the pregnant lady who repeatedly kicks my arss. :-)

2. Runner friends who were friends before we were runners, you need to know that it does not even occur to me to compete against you. My first impulse is only to cheer for you. Honest. I only see targets on the backs of the random people in the hot pink compression socks.

3. Non-running friends and those mercifully born without this irritating competitive gene who are now shaking your heads in that "what is wrong with her!" sort-of way, just forget I ever wrote this post, mkay? Because my competitiveness issues are nothing compared to my desperate need to be Liked By All People Everywhere at All Times.

Read more...

Come what gray

She had us outside twenty minutes early to look for the bus. Yeah, I'd say she's ready.

Kindergarten is only a half day in our district, so there was no time to waste crying in the coffee. Instead, I rejoiced my way to the gym to do one mile repeats (the silence, it was golden). The rejoicing stopped right after I finished the mile warm-up and began running the second mile "on target pace", also known as the "watch out, blissfully-unaware-treadmill-neighbor, because I haven't ruled out puking" pace. Speed workouts are for lunatics. (That would be me.)

Last week at this time, we were still in Maine. It feels worlds away now, already sorted among the stories we'll soon tell about "last summer". The only remnants are the tiny pile of shells in the corner of the car trunk and the staples in my son's head. Yes, folks, the beach is not without its hazards. I told my seven year old there were easier ways to visit Daddy's old hospital, but he insisted on the dramatic way.

He's fine, and we are fine, and everything's fine. Sometimes almost too fine, such that my anxious heart warns me in a low and steady beat: this fragile perfection can only last so long. 

We have only so many moments of silent harmony, of loud joy, of health, of stepping forward without fear,  before it is painted over with the hurdles and the brokenness and the arguing and the disappointment. I know I'm singing an Eeyore and Debbie Downer duet, which is not what you're supposed to sing when you just had a dreamy first day of school send-off with your two perfectly healthy children.
But screw what you're supposed to sing, because life isn't black and white, not enough to say "life is good" or "life is bad".  Life is a mostly a canvas of good-mixed-with-bad gray; and these mythic moments, these milestones, these places of bone-deep contentment, these are the splatters of wild color. These are the hues for which you hold your breath, the colors for which you hold out hope.

But here's the rub. No sooner do the bright swirls appear on the canvas, then I am plotting how to keep them there, how to keep the silt and dust that permeates the air of my regular old life from rendering the colors dull. I know from experience these joyful colors will be dull by dinner time, when everyone is back to complaining about the zucchini.

I don't know what to do, how to live with this constant gray blurring, other than to gaze with gratitude at the colors as they come. And today, there was color. Last week in Maine, there was color. Splattered throughout this summer, there was color. So I pause and enjoy the color, come what gray.

Read more...

Solid Gold Commentary

I lifted the above title from my friend Sharone's contribution to the Olympic festivities, in which she set up a twitter account just to record the inane things the NBC commentators have to say during this 30th Olympiad. If you're on twitter and enjoy mockery, (Isn't that what twitter is for? Mock or be mocked, people!), then you should totally follow her.

My five year old daughter seems to have equally profound and insightful things to say about the Olympics as the talented NBC commentators. For example:

Of the Chinese synchronized divers: "They look like boys, but those are just girls with short hair. You can tell by their bathing suits."
Of the diving platform, "Really? You call that a diving board?"
And finally, "'Mommy, I'm calling for Chinese because Ohio's not in this and I like their backward spinny one."

My son has a bit to say about the Olympics as well. His biggest concern right now is deciding which sports to compete in. It's a toss up between soccer, kayaking, water polo, "sword fighting", and track and field. "But I think probably track, because I could be in contention for the most gold medals." That's what I like best about seven year olds. They have such realistic expectations of life.

He also speculated about what life might be like if the Olympics included food-related competition. "If there was a chocolate eating competition in the Olympics, you could totally win that, Mom." Thanks kid.

But my aspiring Olympians have a ways to go before they burst onto the international scene. I took pity on them after they complained for days on end about how boring my gym's childcare is, and decided to attempt an easy six miler on a flat bike path nearby. The plan was for them to ride while I ran. We met up with a friend (you know, the one I can only keep up with when she's 22 weeks pregnant and pushing a double stroller), and off we went. Pretty sure the kids took three water breaks within the first mile. Overall, they did as well as I expected them to do. We had to slow down the pace, but it wasn't a total disaster. We hit the playground afterward and doled out snacks, and I patted myself on the back for being the nicest mom ever.

So imagine my surprise when later that day the boy nearly burst into tears at the mention of doing a few errands before we took his sister to gymnastics. "Are you kidding me?" he whined. "First you make us go six miles in the blazing sun, and then we have to do ERRANDS?"

Okay then, buddy. Back to the gym childcare it is. (He quickly recanted the complaint but did not escape the prolonged lecture from his mean old mother on gratitude and respect.)

Anyway. At this point, unless they add whining and complaining and fighting about inane things to the Olympic line-up, I'm afraid the only gold this family will be bringing home is the Jose Cuervo variety.

Read more...

In which this is saving me right now

I can't seem to say anything here anymore. Stories crouch on the tip of my tongue, and I swallow them down without sharing. Instead, I scribble shorthand in a journal. I run slow and long while words come together fast and clear and fade as quickly. I am forgetting so much, the cute things they said, the lessons I learned, the poignant holy moments. But it's no longer the worst thing in the world to remember only the essence and not the detail.

Because I'm not on auto-pilot. I'm here, blinking it in. I see the way life unfolds in front of me, sometimes ugly, sometimes gorgeous, always a gift, and I don't have to name it to make it real. I'm here, sometimes full of angst and sometimes of wonder, but full. Always full.

I feel like a traitor to myself when I say I'm tired of words, the way they divide, the way they annoy, the way they add up to so little. Me--the once wannabe writer and the current "words of affirmation" junkie--tired of words? Maybe it's just my own words I'm tired of. As it is, I talk too much and listen too little.

Sometimes I'm foolish enough to think that life isn't quite as disappointing for everyone else, that their existence is as sing-songy and hilarious and amazing and exciting and completely devoid of drudgery as their Facebook updates suggest. I start to think I'm the only one who gets so annoyed with my children (so completely annoyed) that I break my own rule about loud voices in the car by screaming (SCREAMING!!!) at them to be "QUIIIIIET!!!".  I start to I think I'm the only one who leaves the stupid Slip-n-Slide outside to dry in my white trash yard and forgets about until it rains a whole stinking week later, and then gets sprayed in the freakin' face as I race to fold it up. Ok, I probably am the only one who does that. But you know what I mean. Life is always harder than it looks on the screen.

I was offered a consulting(ish) job this past week, and while I knew at once the timing wouldn't work, I let myself dream for a moment what it would be like to have a 9-5 break from the children again. Yes, while everyone else is clicking "Like if you will love your children forever!", I am daydreaming about going back to work so I can get away from them.

I want to get lost in the woods, to walk and run and walk and run for hundreds of miles until I have a unibrow and no idea how truly awful I smell. I want to go off the grid, to find that quiet place where the most solid and vulnerable pieces of me can emerge without threat of being smashed to bits.

Sarah Bessey wrote a piece I just loved about what's saving her right now. At her invitation, I started to write a post about that too, and this is what came out. I guess confession is what's saving me right now. Admission. That I'm screwed up and that my dining room table holds 500 pounds worth of medical journals (that are all online but still somehow cannot be thrown away until the one person in the family who has ZERO time can go through them). Admission. That I'm insecure and impatient and that I only clean the house when my nieces come to babysit because they are used to my sister's standard of cleanliness and I'm afraid of being judged by a 14 and 15 year old.

Really, I'm not making this up. Confession is what's saving me. And maybe it will save you too, to know you aren't alone in the mess and the disappointment, to know that we all need saving.

Read more...

A few things I don't want to forget

Last week, upon starting her daily "besponsibilities", my daughter told me, "Just you wait, Mama, my room is gonna be as clean as a weasel!"
"You mean clean as a whistle?"
"No, as a WEASEL."
Not exactly the standard for cleanliness, but okay then.

::

Yesterday, the kids were doing that thing again where they unknowingly impersonate Garth and Kat, and my seven year old asked me to take a video of them singing. (He clearly doesn't understand the future implications of putting any such video into the hands of his parents. Thinking ahead to the teenage years, the words blackmail and extortion come to mind.)

Anyway, we were in the car, so I said no to the video. His response was, "Well, then, we're going to keep singing crazy things for hours and hours until you take a video."

"Buddy, are you threatening me?"

"Oh yeah, and we'll do it, too." (Insert maniacal laugh, followed by the breakout hit "I'm Melting Like a Popsicle--and a Snowman...and a Snowman").

::

Big brother says to little sister, regarding her progress in Spanish: "You're doing okay, but you really need to work on your pro-uh-ni-ation." (He meant pronunciation.) Oh, lo irónico!

::

The people who say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery should've clarified exactly what's being imitated and by whom. My son has picked up on his parents' free-flowing use of sarcasm (What? Sarcasm is one of the love languages, right?), and is now throwing it regularly back in my face. He's even got the placement, intonation and timing down when he tosses in "Reeeeally?" and "Seriously..." Yes, this taste of my own medicine is quite delightful, thankyouverymuch.

::

I've been dragging the kids to the gym this summer a bit too frequently for their liking, and they are officially bored out of their minds in the childcare area. Yesterday, when I dropped them off, the boy asked how many miles I was doing, did a bit of math in his head, and then called as I left, "You better run a PR and get right back here to pick us up!"

Speaking of PRs, my friend Laura ran a pregnant PR on Sunday to win our age group. If you don't have one of those people in your life that pushes you to do whatever it is you do better, then you need to get one. Because nothing makes you want to run faster than getting beat (twice) by a pregnant lady. We've run a few long runs together (since her normal racing teammates are temporarily too fast for her), and I'm learning a ton from her as I try to ride her coat tails to hard-core-ness.

I don't write much here about running (who I am kidding? I don't write much here about anything.), so if you want to follow along with the running stuff, look for me on Daily Mile. It's a fun way to keep track of your progress and to connect with other runners, joggers, or slightly-faster-than-a-crawl-ers, whatever happens to be your happy pace.

::

My son has been looking for ways to earn money so he can build a theme park in the back yard. He just came up with a brilliant twist on the lemonade stand. He's going to go back to Nana's house, get her to teach him to sew, make like ten dress shirts--all different sizes--and sell them for $60 each. He figures he can get Nana to work for free, (and how much can the fabric and buttons really cost?), and he can pocket about $50 a shirt. That is, if he can keep distribution costs to a minimum with the road-side marketing approach. The wheels are always turning in his crazy brain. Nana, you've been forewarned.

The Entrepreneur and his Chief Production Officer

Read more...

Nothing is worth more than this day

"Nothing is worth more than this day."  - Goethe

Emily posted this quote on Facebook, and if I hadn't already ruled out the possibility of divine revelation through Facebook, I'd have read it like a message from God.

I used to associate "living in the moment" with a brand of hedonistic irresponsibility. I mean, all you have to do is change one little preposition (living for the moment), and you sound more like Pitbull than Goethe, ascribing to that foolish mantra of "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". 

I've flown a responsible holding pattern for most of my life. Save for tomorrow? Yes, faithfully. Plan for what's next? Of course, diligently. Work hard, wait patiently, and step carefully. I equated doing the practical, responsible, feasible thing with doing the right thing.

But I was wrong about what it meant to do the right thing.

Today, the right thing looks very different than it used to.

It looks like traveling 3,000 miles for two short days just to witness her happy tears firsthand.

It looks like driving too far, letting them stay up too late, leaving them in the care of those who reportedly fed them ice cream for lunch.

It looks like taking chances, making introductions, running up hills, dancing like a crazy (sweaty) idiot.

(I was going to post a picture here of me and Sharone halfway through our run, or of me and Alexis obnoxiously hamming it up before the wedding. But then I decided I wanted them to stay friends with me, and they may not agree that posting sweaty and or incriminating photos to the interwebs is the "right thing.")

The right thing looks like forgetting about the weeds and the dust and the disaster zone that is two bedrooms and hallway turned "fort",

like riding bikes instead of cleaning rooms.

It looks like staying up too late to finish a book and getting up too early to start a run.

Nothing is worth more than this day. So I pull out of the responsible holding pattern, lower the landing gear, and touch down into the joy of this day. Who knew it would feel so freeing to do the right thing?

Read more...

Slivered Yellow Moon (Just Write)

Tonight I saw a slivered yellow moon against a black sky. I wanted to stare at it for hours, and I might have if it weren't for the groceries in the back of the car and the constant compulsion to conform to social norms, one of which being that a late-30s mom isn't allowed to gawk at the moon for hours on end.

It's just that this was the same slivered yellow moon I watched rise half my life ago over a small lake in the Sierras. It was the last week of camp, and we staffers had just come from a party celebrating the end of the season. None of us seemed ready to say this was the end, so we built a fire and spread sleeping bags over the small stretch of the beach. We walked right into the cliche of scary stories and hysterical laughter over inside jokes that weren't nearly as funny and unforgettable as they felt that night.  Whenever there was a lull in the crackling of the fire, I heard the lapping of the lake against the shore.

We took turns talking until it was too late, and one by one everyone nodded off.

Except for me.

I couldn't sleep that night, and I have no idea why not, but I've never been so glad for insomnia. I watched the moon and its rippling reflection rise from the horizon of the lake to the top of the sky, and then I watched it fade into the sunrise before I fell asleep for a few hours underneath the morning light.

I woke up with a stiff ache in my neck and a dull ache for which I had no name. Now I know to call it nostalgia, this wishing to float back into previous scenes, all the while hurtling forward instead. 

I didn't want to leave camp and its chronic scent of bug spray. I didn't want to stop breathing the smokiest fresh air you'll ever taste. I didn't want to let go of the waking up with dew on my hair, the lapping sound of the lake, this slivered yellow moon.

::

I drove home from the grocery store, scanning the sky to glimpse the moon through the windshield; and when it came into view again, I started to cry. I felt pathetic, like here I go again into this weak and skinless melancholy, hung up on a moon that takes me back two decades. But if I'm going to err (and I very obviously am), I suppose I'd rather it be from feeling too much and not too little.

The truth is, I am happy now, as happy as I've ever been. But that doesn't stop me from wishing I could skip back nineteen summers and spend another night under the spell of that slivered yellow moon.

Read more...