Whimsy in an Everyday Day

What if I left?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs, and sold geeky knitted crafts at comic-cons across the country?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs, and sold geeky knitted crafts at comic-cons across the country, and stayed in Air BnB's that realized my fantasy of living in a cool cozy quirky apartment?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs, and sold geeky knitted crafts at comic-cons across the country, and stayed in Air BnB's that realized my fantasy of living in a cool cozy quirky apartment, and ate bread and cheese all day like we all say we want to when we're not quite drunk but tipsy enough to believe in possibility?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs, and sold geeky knitted crafts at comic-cons across the country, and stayed in Air BnB's that realized my fantasy of living in a cool cozy quirky apartment, and ate bread and cheese all day like we all say we want to when we're not quite drunk but tipsy enough to believe in possibility, and had to scale back to prepackaged cheddar, but still sharp cheddar, because my cost to profit ratio for career knitting was different than I envisioned?

What if I left and didn't tell anyone and always hit the "I can't talk right now" option when they called, and brought one of the dogs, and sold geeky knitted crafts at comic-cons across the country, and stayed in Air BnB's that realized my fantasy of living in a cool cozy quirky apartment, and ate bread and cheese all day like we all say we want to when we're not quite drunk but tipsy enough to believe in possibility, and had to scale back to prepackaged cheddar, but still sharp cheddar, because my cost to profit ratio for career knitting was different than I envisioned, and I tripped on the uneven sidewalk outside the grocery store where I have to buy my more financially accessible cheese and landed hard on my knee and dominant knitting hand?

and I did not have the liquidity to cover the co-pay?

and I realized that this day was offspring #2's birthday?

and by hitting "can't talk right now" so many times I have alienated him beyond the healing powers of a witty text laced with love and the perfect hint of poignancy?

and I couldn't knit anymore because the anticipated arthritis from falling on my hand hits almost immediately?

and the Air BnB's smell funny?

and even my dog understands that whims get complicated?

and maybe instead of leaving I should live a little and suggest we get Chinese?

and that is how I will add whimsy to this everyday day.

What Did You Do Today

What did you do today?

I, ummm... I checked things off of my manageable list. I used to put eat breakfast on my list. Not because I forget to eat breakfast, but because I knew that would be something I could definitely check off.

I'm face to face with that free time we often dream of. You know the "If I only had more free time I'd do (fill in the blank)" free time. It's not as blissful as you might think. It is often quite paralyzing, in fact. It's not a given that free time will be filled with brilliant achievement or soul cleansing actualization. Most of my free time is spent fearing that I lack what's necessary to fulfill the potential I have long believed has laid dormant due to life, kids, husband, details.

On my manageable list for the last two weeks has been "write." I like writing. What keeps me from writing is the How & Why. How will this be any different than anything else I've tried? How will it result in anything more than polite compliments from friends and family? Why go back to something this late in life when no one could possibly be interested? Why bother? How & Why. Those words curtail my free time into manageable lists. And there is always one word left uncrossed off on those lists at the end of each day. Write.

But not today. Today I set my timer for ten minutes. I'd write for ten minutes. And then that word will get crossed off today's list. And written anew tomorrow.

So, for now, I'll write until the...

A Mother's Day Talk of Shame

Mother’s day is complicated for me. It is not a day of emotional rainbow unicorns and puppies turned inside out and wrapped in brunch, flowers and another meaningful charm for a bracelet that gets in the way when I do just about everything. This is probably because motherhood is complicated for me. The best word I can use to describe it is relentless. Don’t judge me before you look up relentless. It is relentless in its challenges and its joys, its triumphs and its failures, its monotony and its surprises. I do not recognize my experience in the current Mother’s Day mythology; so my tribute to mothers will not be dipped in pastel and served with a mimosa. It will, instead, be coated in something sticky, seasoned heavily with shame and incredulity, and accompanied by something a little stronger which has hopefully been aged in a barrel.

1. I'm embarrassed that I care about Mother's Day.
2. My house is dirty most of the time.
3. My children love each other, but are not friends.
4. Sometimes I block my son’s number.
5. Pretty sure I’m going to have to rely on my dogs to care for me in my old age.
6. My ideal Mother’s Day is a day without my family.
7. I hate grocery shopping.
8. I know for a fact that everyone else is a better mother than I am.
9. I know for a fact that nobody else knows how to parent my kids better than I do.
10. I know for a fact that I have no idea what I’m doing.
11. I am jealous of your kids’ success, genuinely happy for it, but, yes, jealous too.
12. Part of me keeps doing all the cooking, and baking and nurturing crap in hopes that they will eventually have a eureka moment about reciprocity.
13. My husband makes long impossible to-do lists for every weekend. He can’t wait to check off make Mary breakfast & buy Mary gift every second Sunday in May.
14. I don’t remember my children’s first words, I was too exhausted to write them down.
15. I know I cannot actually make them happy, but I keep doing everything possible to make them happy.
16. Sometimes it’s not my fault that it’s their fault.
17. It’s great that they put their dishes in the sink, but why the fuck can’t they put them in the dishwasher.
18. Their suffering still twists my heart into pain and fury.
19. Perhaps my greatest failure as a parent is their inability to find anything.
20. Sometimes I get pissed that I’m always the last one allowed to get pissed.
21. There are many things I could have done if I hadn’t become a mother.
22. There is not a single one of them that I would trade for being a mother.
23. No experience has ever taught me more about the glorious beauty of imperfection and chaos.
24. Don’t ask me what I want for breakfast, after all these years you should know it involves breakfast pastries and bacon.

You are all fierce, beautiful, fabulous for your flaws warriors, who embrace every facet of Relentless every day! Happy Mother's Day.

Bob Newhart Got it Right

Endings are hard. Just ask the writers of Saturday Night Live. Sometimes they end a sketch well, but those are usually in the first half hour. Because endings are hard. That's why there are two too many seasons of The Office, the "see everything turned out alright" ending of Broadcast News, and the coda at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bob Newhart got it right, but he is one of the few. Because endings are hard. The finality of letting go is so unknown.

I often do not know my ending when I begin. I learned from improv that if I pay attention, trust my instincts and build on what is in front of me, the ending will present itself. I look at writing as a process of discovery; a continuing suspenseful delicious unveiling of the truth. Every blog post I have written over the last five years has been a product of this search for this often ridiculous and surprising truth. I promised to always tell you the truth, and it has been the easiest and most rewarding act of my life thus far. Easy because of the courage I find in words, and rewarding because the discovery behind the meaning each post's unique collection of words grants helps me breathe deeper, walk steadier and see clearer than I did before.

And now the ending is presenting itself.

There is no drama. There is no single reason. There is no big news. I am not done parenting, not by a long shot. And I am still making plenty of mistakes and figuring it out as I go along. It simply seems that life, circumstance and plain old instinct is leading me to figure it out in different ways.

I thank you for reading, for sharing, for commenting. My ongoing hopes are that we do not feel alone in our doubts, that we embrace our beautiful flaws and recognize their strength, and we continue to laugh at ourselves because we need to wear our imperfections like badges of honor. Let your loved ones see you fail and not give up, so that they feel comfortable doing the same. Because without failure, we lose innovation.

This Blog began five years ago with a list; a letter to my kids about what I really wanted for Mother's Day. So, since Mother's Day is right around the corner...

What I really want to give myself for Mother's Day

1. I want to forgive myself.
2. I want to remember I have not made my last mistake.
3. I want to keep laughing at myself.
4. I want to take the non-mom part of me out for a drink and see what she's all about.
5. And I wouldn't mind an unnecessary pair of shoes.

Thank you all.

Eagles & Aristotle

We are not diehard Eagles fans. We are Eagles fans, but there is nothing extraordinary about our fandom. But we needed them to win the Super Bowl. We didn't know it, but we needed it.

For those of you who read my last post, other shoes keep dropping. Big Ass Steel Toed Boots keep dropping. For those of you who haven't, go ahead and read it. We'll wait.

Caught up? K.

So Big-Ass shoes have continued to drop at a steady rate, and we are all a little on edge here. We are four exposed nerves walking around taking turns freaking out and eating thin mints like M&M's. And when you operate at this level of "What the Fuck is Next" for an extended period of time, every ripple becomes Euripidean in scope. Forgetting milk at the grocery store, or getting stuck behind a slow driver or not being able to find the right socks to boost your mood are fate-questioning obstacles which can be added to the growing mountain of evidence supporting the universe's conspiracy against you. As a result, imperceptible bumps in the road become metaphors for a perceived narrative that can only lead to ends that equal or surpass those of Cleopatra, Hamlet and Willy Loman combined.

And then along come the Eagles. Carson Wentz leads them to Super Bowl dreams until a season ending injury stops them just short. No way can the back up quarter back fill his shoes. Unless of course it is Nick Foles. I was banned from watching the NFC championship because as soon as I walked in the room, the Vikings scored. The more evolved of you will snicker at my sense of importance, thinking that I couldn't possibly hold sway over the results of a game not even remotely related to me. And to all of you I say-Big Ass Steel Toed Boots. I was not taking any chances, so I left the room.

I contemplated doing the same for the Super Bowl, but my gut told me otherwise. So I sat. and played it cool and knitted for most of the game. Husband and Son #1 have always been loud football watchers. Son #2 and I tend to be more reserved, though Son #2 let fly a few choice words for the refs when he felt an injustice had been done. For most of the game, however, we all played out appointed roles, until the last 2 minutes. I paced by the coat closet, Son #1 and Husband tested the volume of their voices and Son #2 was pretty close to throwing up. Then Brady's final pass was blocked. The Eagles won. And the Carpenters had a catharsis that would have made Aristotle proud.

Husband and Son #1 danced and screamed, I fell to the floor and let loose a primal yolp, and Son #2 ran outside in his bare feet and paraded up and down our sidewalk chanting a triumphant WOO-HOO! We didn't realize how much we needed a win. We didn't realize how much we needed to feel happy. We didn't realize how much we needed to become reacquainted with hope.

Our particular catharsis lacks subtlety and nuance and art, but it is real and restorative, if only for a few days. And when I went to Dick's Sporting Goods the next day and overpaid for Super Bowl shirts and hats, I didn't bat an eye, because those are our talismen; they are the armor we don in what seems like our version of Agincourt. I still believe in Hope, but I stopped trusting it for awhile. I'm still scared of it, of the vulnerability it demands, but I'm more scared of living without it.

So, I will endeavor to dress my soul like Jason Kelce and start each day with a resounding Hell Yeah, because no matter the outcome, despite the Big Ass Steel Toed Boots out there, it really is the only way to live.

E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

What We Do Between Shoes

It's 6:01 am on Thanksgiving and I'm afraid to be grateful.

I'm afraid to feel good, because the other shoe keeps dropping. Life is just full of other shoes dropping right now.

I just looked up the origin of that phrase. It refers to apartment living in New York; the experience of lying in your bed directly underneath the bedroom of the apartment above you and hearing that upstairs neighbor take off one shoe, and then waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know the other shoe is coming, so you resist sleep in anticipation that it will be interrupted and ruined.

Life is a string of other shoes dropping.

Or at least it can feel that way. It is so tempting to feel that way. To cling to misery because it is safe, risks nothing, and gives us something to talk about at parties. There are expected shoes and unexpected shoes. Sometimes the shoe is big and clunky and alters the molecules of the floor, other times it is a Barbie sized shoe that doesn't scratch the surface. And yet, no matter the size, you are never ready for them because the timing of your dropping shoes is wildly unpredictable. This unpredictability does not, however, prevent us from preparing for the downpour of shoes, for trying to ready ourselves for impending doom, real or imagined, exaggerated or authentic. We can live an entire life around the inertia of waiting, nourishing ourselves with the anticipation of disturbance.

Or not.

Because a shoe dropping is over in an instant, it is how you spend time between shoes that makes a life. It is knowing that time will be disturbed and spending it wisely and unwisely and frivolously and quietly and daringly and honestly and mistakenly and forgivingly and authentically that turns waiting into living.

I'm still afraid in this moment right now because I do not know what the day holds; but after I write this, I will pet my dogs. Then I'll probably have a chocolate chip cookie--yes at 6:44 in the morning. Then I'll probably go for a run or check out Pinterest. Then today is happening.

So at 6:50 am, I know what I am thankful for. I am grateful for all the shoes dropping and all the moments in between.

Happy Thanksgiving.

19 Lessons from My Boys

My tenure as a parent can, generously, be called a continuing on the job training program. And after almost twenty years on the job, I can confidently say I'm still in an entry level position. There are many muted Etsy visual renderings of quotes celebrating that kids are the best teachers; though I am not 100% on board with the qualifier, I certainly have learned a lot from my boys. Here is a partial list:

Lessons from Boys

1. Put your clothes anywhere, at some point someone will get annoyed enough to move them.
2. If the dishwasher is closed, it must be off limits.
3. If Mom's in the house, she's assuming the risk of servitude.
4. At some point procrastination will obliterate duty.
5. Baskets of clean clothes and baskets of dirty clothes are indistinguishable; so they must all be dirty.
6. Lost items are never my fault.
7. Most things are Mom's fault.
8. Parents never answer their phones or text with with the immediacy dictated by current social norms.
9. Parents' priorities are
1. Kids
2. Pets
3. Chores
4. Duty
5. Hopes & Dreams(though this category is obviously a sum of the previous four)
10. Guilt applied at the appropriate focal point of parental exhaustion can be fruitful.
11. Parents must be trained to knock at all times
12. Parents should be clothed at all times because knocking is for chumps...and parents.
13. No matter what parents are in the middle of, it can wait.
14. Saying 'Thank you." relaxes Mom more than wine.
15. Admitting they were right comes at a cost, best not to do it at all.
16. Doing a chore without being asked once a quarter buys you a lot of leeway.
17. Apparently parents will love you no matter what.
18. But they're still too clingy.
19. Organic apple juice sucks.

It is true that actions speak louder than words, as most of the above lessons I have learned by observation of habits formed as a result of co-habitating. Many of these same lessons could be applied to any roommate set-up. These are the quick jokes. Here are the lessons that I keep learning:

1. Be here, for no particular reason. It's just good to know.
2. I'm never going to like chores.
3. I'm never going to like homework
4. Sometimes bravery looks the same as getting out of bed.
5. Being a dick around you helps me avoid it elsewhere.
6. Just feed me, it will solve 75% of my problems.
7. Trust me.
8. I heard you. What you said 37 times is somewhere in my head.
9. I need you but don't want you to know that I need you; so, just know when I need you.
10. Sometimes I'm gonna want to talk to Dad instead. I still love you.
11. Sometimes I'm gonna need the dogs more than either of you.
12. I do notice everything you do. The only reason I don't do it is because I don't care about it as much as you do right now.
13. I don't want to be the reason you worry, that's why I don't tell you everything.
14. Read my mind, like know when I need deodorant, but don't assume you know me.
15. I want to feel in control too, that's why I pick fights.
16. Making you really laugh, not fake "I 'm encouraging you" laugh, makes me feel grown up.
17. Life lessons will be learned, you don't have to make an after-school special about it.
18. Apparently parents will love you no matter what.
19. Organic apple juice sucks

As my job training continues, I will keep trying to rise above cynicism, to Alan Turing their code, remember that learning requires failing and lay off the organic apple juice. Maybe one day I'll make it out of the mail room.