Category: family

  • Life with the (digital) natives…

    Life with the (digital) natives…

    The other day Catgirl told me that there was a story in the newspaper about one of her school events.  She reported to me that this story was in the New York Times, which I just happen to subscribe to on the weekends.

    Why do I describe to a newspaper, you ask?  Me, who is more cyborg-digital than just about anyone else on the planet?  Because there’s nothing else quite like reading the paper on weekend mornings over coffee.

    So she grabbed the Times, excised it from its plastic wrapper and realized that she had no idea what to do with it.

    Where is it?  She asked, holding the folded paper and gesturing to what seemed to be some kind of magical miniature kitten hiding within its folds.

    I explained that she would most likely find a Table of Contents on the first or second page.  She kept turning the folded thing around in her hands trying to figure out where the ON button was located.

    Her brother grabbed the paper from her hands and started gently unfolding it like origami, all the while explaining:

    “My cultural knowledge tells me that one is supposed to grab the pages on each side and pull them open like this.”

    And with that he succeeded in unlocking the mystery that is the newspaper, as a pile of advertising supplements fell at his feet.

    Catgirl eventually found the Table of Contents and noticed that there were obituaries listed.  She seemed to find that fascinating, but still had no idea where she’d locate the article about high school students that she was seeking.  Within a few moments she gave up, leaving the newspaper in a folded heap on the dining room armoire (which, incidentally, holds a television set that we’ve never bothered to examine since moving into the house where we’re living this year).

     

  • mother work

    mother work

    FYI for any new readers…I was a married-stay-at-home-Mom for eight years–from the time my first child was born until my youngest entered school.  Now I’m the single mother of two teenagers who works full-time at a white collar “desk” job.   The topic of ‘mother-work’ has been on my mind with the recent media kerfluffle about Mitt Romney’s wife and her full-time care of 5 (or 6?) sons.

    Then…

    Mothering my young ones was a delight.  I relished the hours spent with the babies–feeding them, reading stories, and holding their small soft bodies close to mine.  I kept my schedule fairly wide-open so we would have plenty of time for spontaneity and long swings in the park and afternoons of sidewalk chalk.  My kids didn’t attend preschool or have many ‘extra’ activities because there simply wasn’t the money for it–staying home with the kids meant many financial sacrifices and as a result our lives were simple and uncluttered.  We went to the library and the beach nearly every week.  I sang them to sleep at night with lullabyes in the rocking chair.  I was a PTA Mom and volunteered many hours every work in church and for other non-profit organizations.  I wrote book reviews for a small literary journal and studied French and yoga.  Rarely did I ever tell anyone that I “didn’t have enough time” for visits or hobbies or watching the sun set–because what I did have, then, was time.

    But of course…my schedule was monotonous, with never-ending housework.  And there was potty training and stomach-sickness and tantrums that could last for hours.  Careful budget-keeping meant a lot of financial pressure at the end of every month as I would cross my fingers and hope that we could stay in the black.  I found little satisfaction in keeping the home tidy when two toddlers could undo a day’s work in the blink of an eye.  My spouse usually took our one car to work so I had little freedom outside of walking around the perimeter of our small suburban neighborhood.  No one noticed when the dishes and laundry were clean, but everyone noticed when they weren’t.  And I found few local friends who shared my bookish interests.  My spouse’s business life included late-night parties and weekend trips and dot.com-era office shenanigans, while my social life was playing hours of solitaire on the computer in our bedroom as I waited for him to walk in the front door. My small monthly allowance ($20 or so) usually went to trips to the Goodwill to buy clothes for myself and the kids.  Or sometimes I would deposit the money in my own long-term savings account.

    Now…

    When I began working full-time I was amazed to have an office space all to myself.  I can remember having to stifle the impulse to hug my laser printer–never having had such a nice piece of equipment all to myself (not to mention my iMac and PC laptop and all kinds of other tech-toys that were tucked away on my shelves).  Getting up and dressed professionally and commuting early to work felt “real” and adult.  Getting paychecks and learning about everything from taxes to retirement funds made me feel powerful and in charge of my future in ways that I never had when I was dependent on my spouse’s income.  I still feel a bit guilty even taking a lunch hour when there’s always plenty of work to do at the office and I consider how much money they pay me every month.  Perhaps the biggest luxury of my job is my modest travel expense account for conferences, seminars, and institutes–to be paid for travel…

    But of course there were and still are many days that the alarm rings too early in the morning, or there is too long a long list of “To Do” errands on my way home from the office (in addition to an hour-long commute).  So much so that I walk in the door exhausted and grumpy and realizing that it’s now time for me to cook and clean and offer attention to my kids even though my own physical reserves are spent.  Laundry is done at odd hours and sometimes mildews in the washer before it gets into the dryer, I’m often forgetting something important in my rush to & fro.  Facing the fast-looming expense of putting two kids through college is quickly deepening the worry lines between my eyebrows.  I find that I am constantly telling colleagues and friends that “I don’t have enough time.”

    To Compare…

    Perhaps there is little to compare between the life of a cash-strapped housewife-Mom and that of a single-mother with secure and satisfying employment.  As a SAHM I had time, but not money.  I had a lot of joy in raising my children, but little autonomy.  And I craved an adult world of conversations and non-snot-soiled clothing.  I now carry many more obligations and have little discretionary time, but there are other kinds of satisfactions that come from feeling valued by my employer and co-workers, and getting tasks accomplished each day.  In both situations I have not been desperately poor or desperately overstretched or desperately unfulfilled.  I chose to be a mother and then I chose to go to work.  Once those choices were made I lived with the consequences–good and bad.

    But what’s relevant to the political brouhaha, is that there are challenges and downfalls of both scenarios–so much so that being on one side of the fence and looking down on women on the other side is hardly productive or helpful.  Rather, I would hope that we could realize that it’s hard work to care for children and hard work to balance earning a paycheck with family responsibilities.  Instead of spinning into endless cycles of finger-pointing, I’d like for politicians to work harder to make mothering valued–by, say, making it possible for SAHMs to earn social security benefits or to contribute to Roth retirement plans, and to make workplaces more caregiver-friendly by facilitating flexible work schedules or on-site childcare.

    More than anything, we have a long way to go, as a society, in valuing the labor of women–the mundane daily difficulties of maintaining a home and the thankless work that goes into managing the needs of young children.  If, as Mitt Romney says, his wife’s job is more important than his, I would like to know how he will translate that into family-friendly policies that support the important work of caregivers (especially those not married to billionaires).

  • He’s the man

    Today GameBoy turns 18.  And…I think it might be time for a new moniker, he is no longer my Gameboy (although, of course, he will always be my boy).

    My life changed forever on the morning he was born.  I learned then what it’s like to care more about another person’s life than about my own.  He was the greatest gift that I’d ever been given, and I still think he’s 100 percent totally and completely perfect, just because he is himself.
    cowboy weejeeham!

    In a few months he’ll be moving on to the next phase of his life (right now, it’s looking like Portland and Lewis&Clark College are on the horizon for him but that’s not yet fully decided).  I will surely be shedding many tears as I launch him from the nest this fall.  But…I also just can’t wait to see what he will become!

    it's his birthday

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  • this caring colored my life…(a requiem)

    this caring colored my life…(a requiem)

     Just came home and got this news.  Such an amazing way to start a weekend!

    This poem has been in my queue for awhile, awaiting the day when “Remy vs. Remy” was finally settled.  And, that is today (will y’all raise a glass my way tonite, my friends?  This is truly a moment that calls for commemoration–a time to toast to life-lessons learned)…And as always seems to happen in my life, when one door closes, many more open up on the pathway ahead.  I’m turned towards all of those right now rather than looking back…

    So, I don’t think John will see this (we’ve done the best we can to disentangle our lives from one another, which includes not following each others’ blogs), but this is for him anyways…a requiem for our relationship, for letting go of the weight of the care and the obligations that followed in its wake.

    Ache’s end

    My sweet ache
    is gone.
    Sweet and painful
    caramel, honey
    in a broken tooth.
    You were with me
    like a light cold
    in the bones,
    a rainy day gnawing.
    An awareness
    that would turn down
    to a faint hum
    to an edging of static.
    This caring
    colored my life,
    a wine badly fermented
    with sugar and vinegar
    in suspension.
    A body can grow used
    to a weight,
    used to limping
    and find it hard
    to learn again
    to walk straight.

    ~Marge Piercy

  • timeline

    timeline

    Recently, I switched my Facebook profile to the Timeline format.  I resisted the change for awhile, thinking that it was better if some parts of my last few years remained in deep-storage.  But I knew that FB was going to force me onto Timeline soon enough anyways, so I decided it was time to set it up.

    As I looked over at the early months of 2011, I was surprised at just how excited I was at everything I was experiencing–so many new places, new friends, roadtrips, adventures.  Wow (funny how I’d even forgotten many of the details, and just how close together many of those events actually occurred). I was a woman who was simply thirsty for everything–I think I must’ve hardly slept at all, I was moving and evolving so fast as I shed the trappings of marriage and everything else that had been holding me back..

    But…perhaps what’s been most interesting to me about perusing the timeline and considering just how much my life has changed in the interim, is my near-silence about some important people that I met then–most specifically the person that I dated for many months, and who is now an integral part of my daily life.

    And…I still don’t have a lot to share here (or on Facebook) on that topic.

    Of course he’s a quiet presence in many of my tales and tweets and photos, and many of my “in-real-life” friends and extended family members have become acquainted with him over the past year.

    But I find it a hard balance to share my personal life–a space intimately shared with my children and my partner–and my desire not to erode the singular identity that’s come at such a price over the past few years.  Added to that, is the fact that I no longer need the validation that comes from sharing certain personal happenings in a public venue.  Maybe that will change over time, but for now it feels right…
    freedom

     

  • mad world (or, songs in the big chair)


    My thoughts for this post have been germinating for awhile, so when I learned of Heather’s separation yesterday, it seemed time to tell the story (or at least, part of it)…

    The four of us sat around the kitchen table sharing peppermint tea and scones, like we had so many times before.  Of course this felt both familiar and odd because it was the middle of the day and both Mom and Dad were home from work.  John sat at one end of the table, me on the other, and the kids on opposite sides between us.  At some point John told us that he had something to share and we all reached for each others’ hands to sit in silence as he prepared himself for what he had to say.

    How funny, I remember thinking in that moment, that our family was so close and so functional that it made even a horrible discussion a thing of beauty.  There was no yelling and no anger, just him explaining to the kids that he’d made some choices that meant that he was leaving our marriage.  Watching the shock pass across the kids’ faces is something I won’t forget, and even thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes.

    After his explanation and some questions from the children, I told him that it was time for him to leave our home.  I saw him to the door.  I think I might have hugged him, but I don’t remember for sure if I did then, or even when we last touched.

    Something beautiful and holy happened in those moments after he walked out the door.  The kids and I formed a circle of arms and held on and cried, and I remember thinking that now….finally…my family could be what I wanted it to be, because for so long I’d just given up on things because I was so tired of the silence and closed doors.

    We didn’t do much at all for the next few hours, just curled up in the huge oversized chair in our living room and held on.  Gameboy went to his room to be alone for a bit and Catgirl stayed with me there.  I stroked her hair, as I had so many times when she was little.  Neither of us could talk much so I shared with her the playlist of songs that I’d made to get me through the days leading up to telling them about the divorce.  First up was Alex Parks’ version “Mad World,” and we ended up listening to that song over and over again that day.

    Back in the mid-80s when I was diagnosed with cancer and the world seemed so arbitrary and cruel, I would listen to the Tears for Fears version of “Mad World” and it helped me to remember that awful things just happened sometimes and that it wasn’t my fault.  And I knew that if I kept listening, kept singing…I didn’t have to make sense of what was happening to me.  I could just know that life was just that…mad and painful and tough-as-nails.

    For long after that day, the kids and I had tea when I walked in the door from work in the early evening–to share stories from our days and to reconnect with each other.  Occasionally I would set out four teacups instead of three, but I made that mistake less and less over time.

  • that was just yesterday

    that was just yesterday

    Yesterday I visited a former teacher.  Over ten years ago, it was the first day of her “Journey Narratives” class (a lit class–we were reading The Odyssey and Gilgamesh and the like) that she looked out at the sea of students and asked us if we thought we were on a journey ourselves.   I think it was my hand that went up into the air first, and I spoke of the journey narratives that imbued my formative years–the LDS Saints’ westward trek in the nineteenth century, the wilderness wanderings of the Book of Mormon, etc.  And I said that I thought I was a pilgrim of sorts, on a spiritual journey to find something sacred inside of myself.  That conversation soon birthed this blog and not too long after led me to graduate school.

    As we sat in her living room, she reminded me of the first time I visited her office hours.  Catgirl was a wee 3 year-old and had sat on my shoulders playing with my hair as I chatted with my professor.  She remembered that Catgirl admired her necklace because it had hand-blown glass beads that looked like candy.  As a bit of a distraction so we could discuss some questions that I had about the course materials, my teacher took off her necklace and let my daughter hold it (at the time, I thought it particularly generous gesture because it was obviously an expensive piece of jewelry).

    Yesterday she gave Catgirl that beaded necklace as a “good luck” talisman for her plan to attend school in Europe next year.  Words can’t express how exciting it is to see my daughter taking her first steps on her own path.  And I still marvel at the generosity and support of a teacher who started me out on my own…

     

  • changes

    changes

    A friend* recently noticed (from a Facebook post) that I’d eaten dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse.  She seemed more than a little shocked given my formerly-hippie ways (back in the day when I eschewed meat, wore all organic-cotton clothing, and grew my own veggies in my expansive compost-fertilized garden).  It’s a huge change from the now-me, who has only a handful of potted herbs, who often buys clothes because of expediency/necessity for events rather than for their sustainability, who spends most of her outdoor-time with a paddle in hand instead of a shovel, and who has a long-ish daily commute from Irvine to Orange.

    I don’t think that I’m any less authentic or intentioned than in the days when I had the luxury of time to follow environmentalist ideals and could spend a day biking to and wandering around the local grower’s market or in search of clothing in second-hand stores.  It was a season of my life that I enjoyed, much, but is now behind me.

    I wouldn’t say that I’ve evolved past those ways of doing things–not at all.  Instead, my choices are pragmatic ones.  In order to have the time with my family that I relish, I have to make choices in other parts of my life to keep things simple.   And, these days I’m shopping at Whole Foods instead of the Farmer’s Market, and catching up with friends via Facebook instead of over the garden fence (oh, that’s probably the hardest part I’d say).

    *The friend who made that observation will understand why there’s a photo of Eggs Benedict from my recent Montreal trip accompanying this post–it’s one of my favorite breakfasts when I travel.   ;-)

     

  • gift

    gift

    Last winter our family was completely upended.  John left me just before Thanksgiving.  Then, much of the month of December I was in residence as a research Fellow at the Huntington Library, which meant I lived in Pasadena.  This was a mixed blessing:  it allowed me space to grieve the loss of my marriage and it gave John time to find an apartment and remove his things from our (or rather, my) home.  But it was also hard to be on my own in a new-to-me-city.  After having been a wife and a mother for nearly 20 years, it was quite bizarre to be alone in the evenings after the Library closed.

    The children joined me in Pasadena for the week of Christmas.  I knew it would be strange for them to be in a new home away from everything familiar for that week, but it also seemed somewhat apropos because nothing was routine about the rhythms of our lives anymore.  Because of my Fellowship obligations (and the crazy-crunch of dissertation-writing in December), right up until Christmas Eve I continued working in the research library for seven hours a day while the kiddos wandered the gardens of the Huntington.  In the evening we’d meet in the gift shop, just as the facility was closing down, hanging out there for a few minutes together reading books or giggling over tchotchkes.   Then we’d head over to my favorite cafe for dinner.

    Christmas morning was humble.  My biggest presents for the kids (furniture for their room at their Dad’s new place) would arrive after the new year, so they just had few stocking-stuffers to open.  And there were a few gifts from my Mom and siblings.  While I’d steeled myself for the realization that there wouldn’t be any packages with my name on them that year, it was still a harsh reality to face on Christmas morning.  Which is why I felt both surprised and puzzled when the kids passed a square white box in my direction.

    I opened it to find this sparkly turquoise ball nestled in tissue paper.

    I bawled so hard as I opened the package, I think I scared the kiddos.  But they wrapped their arms around me and held on until I was done.

    At some point I must’ve shown the kids the turquoise-blue ornament in the Huntington gift shop that was my favorite.  It wasn’t particularly fancy, but was blue like the ocean that I missed so much during my Pasadena month.  I’d gone to the gift store to buy it for myself on the last evening before Christmas.  My disappointment at not finding it in the basket next to the cash register where I’d seen it everyday all month long, seemed par for the course.  It was such a silly thing to buy anyway–an ornament–when there were so many other pressing needs in my life.  

    I hung the blue orb in the over-the-sink window of my last home and now it sits permanently on the mantle of my new one (much to the delight of the kitties who like to bat at it and watch it roll).  The ornament reminds me of that time in my life when I felt the most alone: I’d walked away from my religious community (and, to some extent my family-of-origin) and then my spouse walked away from me.  Though many friends offered to ‘be there’ whenever I needed them, it just wasn’t the same as having one special person who wrapped something ‘just for me’ to open in the morning.  And it wasn’t really about the lack of a package–it was about facing a future of mornings when no one would even know whether I was awake, and the loss of that someone for me to cling to through the long dark nights.  That the kids understood that even in the midst of their own grief over the changes in our family, meant so much.

    This Christmas we put up all the familiar decorations from years’ past, but everything feels different, a bit off-kilter from the very deliberate holiday preparations of prior seasons.  I’m so busy with work that there won’t be Christmas cards and goodies.  Gifts for extended family won’t be handmade.  It’s doubtful that we’ll host our annual gingerbread decorating party (but oh, remember just how fabulous those were sometimes?…).  And while it’s possible that we’ll still have our annual Astro-Veggie Tree decorating extravaganza…I just don’t know how much retro-goofy creativity is left in me these days…

    But this may well be the last year with both kids living at home, so I feel like making the most of whatever familiarity remains, even knowing that it’s not the traditions that matter at all.  They’re just the vehicle for sharing our love with each other…one ornament at a time.

    IMG_6231

  • thankful

    thankful

    As I consider how to express my thankfulness at this season, I’m overwhelmed. There’s so much to be grateful for, so many surprises and pleasures and joys.

    But mostly, I’m grateful that…
    -my house is quiet and clean and peaceful
    -the light coming through the living room windows is perfect for morning coffee & contemplation
    -the kitties are endearing and soft (even when fighting over the perfect sunny windowsill spot)
    -I have enough of everything
    -there are two maple trees in my backyard showing their colors
    -my children are happy
    -my work is rewarding
    -even in times of stress, like last week when I was in a car accident, things seem to work out well (I’m fine, my car repairs are fully covered)
    -there are many friends in my life, who like to chat and cook and exercise and giggle
    -I feel safe and loved
    -my body is healthy and stronger every day
    and…
    -my mind is full of happy memories and hopes for the future.

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  • in the sun…

    This year the holiday season hasn’t been something that I’m looking forward to much. I dread the social obligations and complications. The decor and music is already gotten to be too much for me and it’s not even Black Friday yet (sigh).

    But my friend Heather shared this video today and I realized how ‘on board’ I was with Tim’s vision of the holidays. I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to being with the people that I love. Sitting in the SoCal sunshine sipping a glass of wine sounds the perfect way to pass the time…

    Tim’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is also well-worth a listen. It’s such a joy to listen to someone who really ‘gets’ that song…

  • Them “gay” books: a response

    Them “gay” books: a response

    My daughter’s photo accompanied a BlogHer post this week, that same image of our old living room bookshelves that the  New Yorker online featured awhile back.  As I read the BlogHer post and looked at the photo, I suppose it was really the first time I thought about our bookshelves as “gay.”  I mean, these shelves were in the living room of a heterosexual married couple with two children.  Suburban, middle-class normal, not-gay.  Kind of.*

    The author of the post used the photo of our living room to illustrate her discussion of why she doesn’t encourage (or allow?  it’s a bit unclear) her child to read “gay” books because she doesn’t want her to be “exposed to alternative lifestyles,” especially books that might depict intimate interactions between same-sex couples.

    I grew up in a home with “traditional” values where I was often told not to read certain books because they had ‘inappropriate’ sexual content.  True confession: whenever I was told not to read something, I went right out and got my hands on a copy of that book and read it to try to figure out why it was forbidden. Perhaps this was because I found the world that I was growing up in to be awfully confusing.  My family belonged to the LDS church and we lived in the Bible Belt–there were so many arbitrary rules and restrictions in my home and in my Christian friends’ homes that it was hard to make sense of it all.  Books allowed me to either escape my own world, or to help me understand it better.  The school librarian was a close friend and she would let me read books on my lunch hour instead of going out to the playground with the other kids.  Sure, I read a lot of stuff that I didn’t understand–much of it about sex, which was a complete mystery to me having had to piece together a bit of schoolbus crudeness with some rudimentary biology lessons and nothing of that connecting well at all to the romantic scenes that played out on the pages of the novels that I read.  For example, I remember reading a scene in one of those ‘forbidden’ books where a girl and a boy started kissing at a party, and it mentioned him putting his tongue in her mouth.  I wondered about that a lot–I’d never seen anyone kiss like that and it sounded pretty gross.  But the girl in the book liked it.  Liked it so much that she then let him put his hands inside of her clothes.  Again, confusing.  I wondered why she let him do that.  Why it felt good to her.  And more than anything, why that was so scandalous that I shouldn’t be reading about it.  I probably thought a lot more about that scene (and others like it) than I would have otherwise–simply because I knew I wasn’t supposed be reading it.

    So because the whole censorship thing didn’t work all that well on me, I decided that when my own kids started reading, I simply wouldn’t censor them.  Ever.  I went to the library with them and we talked a lot about the books they chose.  And on the shelves in our living room were books with explicit sexual content right next to books written by Mormon General Authorities (ok, truth: I did that on purpose sometimes–BoydK could really benefit from some time next to Nabokov, IMO).  There was always a mix of all kinds of stuff–nothing forbidden.  Occasionally I’d find my kids reading something that I thought warranted a conversation that went something like:

    “I saw you were reading Such and Such.  What did you think about that?  Were there any parts that you found confusing or that you’d like to talk about?”

    Interestingly, the only books that I remember causing me some alarm as my daughter read them, was the Twilight series.  I didn’t forbid it, but instead I did read along with her and then had a conversation about why it’s not okay for a dating partner to stalk you in your bedroom or to treat you violently during a sexual encounter.

    Was it “gay” of me to let my teenagers read anything that they wanted off of our rainbow-colored family bookshelves?  I don’t think so.  Are my teenagers “gay” now because they read books with gay characters?  Well, they’re no more or less gay than they were before, I’d say.  Just like they’re no more or less heterosexual than they were before they read books with heterosexual characters.  But I’m also not invested in any particular outcome for my kids’ sexual expression.  They can be gay or not-gay or gay-ish or whatever suits their desires.  I suspect that they might approach their future relationships a bit like they have their reading material–pulling various items off the shelf and reading for awhile to see if it’s compelling enough to continue.  Maybe realizing that one is not right and putting it back and reaching for another.  Sometimes choosing a favorite genre and sometimes something in a new vein.

    But the bookshelf analogy breaks down pretty quickly when you compare texts to people–humans can’t be as easily ‘read’ or ‘shelved’ as books can.  And maybe that’s the most important lesson that I want my kids to learn from those rainbow shelves: there’s a big colorful world out there and as they move out on their own they’ll come across all kinds of ‘content’ that challenges and provokes their point of view.  It’ll soon be their job to filter through all of that and choose the path that makes the most sense for their inclinations and passions.  And just like I can’t control the use of Creative-Commons-licensed photos of my daughter like the one above, I also can’t control my kids’ future choices.  Instead, I simply have to trust that they’ll be wise about the decisions that lie ahead as they select their relationships.

    *Maybe we were gay–we did like rainbows and a bit of cross-dressing and were strongly engaged in the fight against Prop 8.  :)