I Hide My Chocolate

Midlife observations
August 9, 2014

What Would Jane Say?

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Saying Good-Bye

I had my last therapy session last week. For now. We talked about good-byes and how to make them meaningful. So many good-byes. I am saying good-bye to my daughter as she leaves for college this month. I am saying good-bye to my mother as she becomes more frail and unable to speak at the end of her life. I am saying good-bye to my younger self.

How do you know when it’s time to end therapy and say good-bye? You don’t. I am still anxious. I am still melancholy. I still wake up in the middle of the night ruminating. I didn’t change careers. I didn’t change spouses. I didn’t move to some exotic location. No – the changes were incremental. Maybe not even noticeable to others. But they are radical to me. I have learned to recognize my inner voice. You know, the one that speaks your truth. I learned to listen. I found people and activities that supported me. I found friends, making new ones and nurturing old ones.

Perhaps finding joy in one’s current life is the biggest possible accomplishment of all?

I wanted to mark our last session with some significance, to honor the therapeutic process, our relationship, and the personal growth I’ve experienced in the last (almost) three years. I found myself heading down my usual path of putting pressure on myself to come up with an amazing good-bye gift. But what do you give someone who has helped you so much? And, she pointed out, I had given much to her with my sharing and my development. Maybe a tchotchke was not necessary.

We reflected on what we had shared together. One of the big themes of our time together was what do I want? After spending my life, very successfully, being a good girl, a good daughter, a good student, a good employee, a good wife and mother, and reaching middle age wondering if this was it and alarmed at the hurtling pace of time, I needed to pause and probe who am I and how do I want to spend the next phase of my life? Our sessions were a place where I could practice saying what I think and what I want without judgment before testing it out in the real world with other people, other people who are less patient than Jane.

One of the tools she taught me was how to take a conversation at least one step further than I was used to doing. My habit was to accept whatever the other person said and leave my own thoughts to myself. As I would tell her my stories, she would ask questions. And I would say, “Ummm. I don’t know – I hadn’t thought of that!” I hadn’t thought to ask, to find out. I just accepted. Or she would make a suggestion for something I might do.  Differently. Something that would not have occurred to me, but was so obvious and natural once she suggested it. So we laughed at our last session. Perhaps one of the ways I could carry her and our experience with me will be to pause and ask myself, “What would Jane say?”

One of the gifts she gave me was to believe me. When I would tell her some of my fuzzier more painful stories, I would pause with self-doubt. Did that really happen? Maybe it didn’t happen after all. Maybe he didn’t really do that to me. Maybe he didn’t really do that to her. In one memorable session, she said, “Why would you make this up?” Why indeed? She helped remove the shame I felt from the more painful stories of my past and to understand and even be proud of the way I have coped. I learned that I could do things differently moving forward. Anxiety and shame didn’t have to be my go-to place.

It was a safe place, those weekly sessions. I could rant. I could cry. I could worry. I could share dreams, literally and figuratively. No judgment. Usually we just talked. She helped me knit together the stories of my past such that I could look at them with perspective as a broader narrative and not feel so caught up inside them. With some distance, I was able to find some understanding for the girl I was and the woman I’ve become.

One of the skills she helped me develop was to appreciate the impact I have on others. A greater sensitivity to what others are experiencing has helped me to be a more honest and compassionate wife, mother, boss, teacher, daughter, friend, though perhaps I am a less dutifully good one. (I doubt it – I am not sure I will ever be free of being a good girl.)

As I have developed my yoga, my writing, my expanding circle of friends, my voice, my intuition, she likened the process to growing a seedling. Tender. Vulnerable to swaying in the wind or being entirely uprooted. I needed to nurture this seedling with support and practice. Practice at being me – being grounded, honest. Only then, with established roots, could I think about saying good-bye. I could say good-bye to my identification of myself as anxious, overwhelmed, and sad. I could see myself as funny and cheerful and optimistic and loving and generous. (And anxious, overwhelmed, and sad. It’s all in the mix.) Me? Yes. I can feel. I can be me. Thank you Jane.

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July 27, 2014

The Countdown

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Extra Strong or Maximum Strength?

My daughter moves to college one month from tomorrow. In 32 days. Exactly. Not that I’m counting the days. Except that I am. It’s this big looming day that seems to mark the end of family as we currently know it. I think I’ve been counting the days since the day she was born. Only 18 years with her! They’re going to fly by! Better enjoy it because before you know it she’ll be going to college!

So. Here we are. She is going to college. In 32 days.

We spent two days at Orientation. Thankfully, schools now include parents in the process, allowing us to familiarize ourselves with the campus, the curriculum, and all the transitional support services. It’s a massive relief to have spent those two days together — together but separate…they whisk the kids away from the parents.  It’s a massive relief to have spent those two days together in July, well Before Moving Day. I can approach the next 32 days with some familiarity about what her life will be like After Moving Day.

It’s not how it was done when I went to college. I moved into a dorm under construction into a tiny room with bunk beds and a roommate I had never met. My mother broke down in tears. Who could blame her? Except that it made it even harder for me to separate. I was very homesick. I think my daughter will miss home, a lot, but I don’t wish that kind of homesickness on her. As the mothers who have gone before me have told me would happen – I am sad and anxious but also excited and proud.  Really, all I want is for her to adjust as smoothly as possible and to find her own way as a happy and successful (whatever that means) young adult.

So. Here we are, cramming in doctors’ appointments, filling out paperwork, paying the first tuition bill, making to-do lists, and getting lost in the details of what needs to get done. In 32 days. Before Moving Day. Should I get the Extra Strong garbage bags or the Maximum Strength garbage bags? (Who is the marketing copywriter who thought those categories were clear to the consumer?) Frankly, I never would have even known that garbage bags are better than boxes if it weren’t for my amazing sister-in-law who seems to know everything I don’t know. I pretend I am more capable than her. I research stuff and come up with my own opinions. But when it comes to getting things done, she is way more capable than me. So when staring at the confusing array of garbage bag choices, I knew I had to consult her. Get the Extra Strong, she said. Extra Strong is better than Maximum Strength? Yes, she said. You can throw pillows and bedding into them. And for heavier stuff, like shoes, you just pack as much as you can carry. Okay. Well said. I completely trust you.

All this To-Do Busy-ness is a distraction from the momentous emotion of this still pause in time, between high school and college, a caesura before she leaves. I am too busy to cry. I am too busy taking care of the details to stand back and do what really matters. Be With Her.

So yesterday, we spent the afternoon together. She introduced me to Reiki a while back and we decided to do Reiki training together this year. Yes Reiki. Crazy Hokum, I know. I, the only offspring of scientist, aetheist parents, discovered Reiki through my yoga friends and my wise daughter who explained it to me, simply: “I don’t know. It feels warm and nice.” Indeed. She is so wise. Those engineering students are going to be lucky and grateful she is in their midst!

As my swirling nervous energy entered the Reiki training workshop, our wonderful Reiki Master reminded me to get out of my head and just be. Just feel the moment. Let it happen. Instead of wondering if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and feeling what I was supposed to be feeling, just appreciate the moment. When my nervous energy wakes me up in the middle of the night, sends me walking briskly at dawn, drives me to pick my cuticles or rub that poor sore spot by my right ear, she suggested that I feel my feet on the ground. “I feel my feet on the ground, calm and peaceful.” I try to say this when I’d rather be picking at the sore spot by my right ear.

At the end of the afternoon training, my daughter and I took turns offering and receiving Reiki from each other. As I was on the table and she was offering me Reiki, she was radiating energy. Such love and warmth were emanating from her. I wondered if I could offer my mother Reiki, allowing her to rest and be peaceful, to touch her with love and warmth? I imagined (or was it a vision? I have visions when receiving Reiki. Yes, I really do. Call it crazy hokum, but it’s the truest peace I’ve found in my nearly 52 years of this life.) I saw myself as old. Old and dying. And that she, my daughter, was offering me Reiki to send me love and peace. I can’t imagine a better way to die. I just hope it’s a long time from now. But it’ll be here before I know it. So I better slow down and enjoy every day. With her. (And all the people I love.) Before Moving Day. In 32 days.

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July 13, 2014

If Mothers Led the World

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Whither Hope?

Remember the Nigerian girls? The 200+ girls that went to school to take their exams and were abducted by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram (“Western Education is Sin”)? The story that took weeks to hit the front page until outrage took the form of a brief-but-intense social media frenzy with #BringBackOurGirls? Three months have passed since the kidnapping and the girls are still not rescued. What are those mothers going through? Good God! Those poor mothers.

Since the kidnapping of the girls, the next event that transfixed me with horror was the death of the three missing Jewish teens that led to the eye-for-an-eye death of the Palestinian teen, escalating the latest violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Can you imagine saying good-bye to your child in the morning and them not coming home? Ever? Good God! Those poor mothers.

The thing is, I can imagine. I do imagine. It’s my biggest fear. Bringing home my newborn and hovering over her several times every night — every night for months! — to make sure she’s still breathing. Checking in with my son the first time he is home alone without a babysitter and then the first time he IS the babysitter. Putting my daughter on an airplane for her first international trip on her own. I pray he is safe. I pray she comes home. I worry that the world will see ever more conflict and that my children will be called upon to fight as soldiers. Good God! Whither peace? Don’t THEY love their children too?

Don’t you think there would be less conflict if mothers were the leaders of the world? I guess we are too smart or too busy or too subjugated. I know, I know. I know that mothers don’t have a lock on compassion and wisdom and I know many non-parents who are compassionate and wise. But Good God! Imagine if the leaders in power filtered their decision-making through the lens of having children. Because then the overriding question governing all decision-making would be: “What is best for our children? How will this action improve their future?” Ego would diminish. The differences between us would diminish. We would lead with our hearts, with compassion and tolerance and empathy. And wisdom.

It seems a lofty but unattainable goal. Even the pacifist Caesar in the latest blockbuster Dawn of the Planet of the Apes comes to a pragmatic and tragic understanding that the fear of what is different and the desire for power will lead to distrust and war. Spoiler alert, there is no hope at the end of that movie. Well, I take that back. There are the sons, both human and ape.  (Where are the daughters?)

Whither hope? It is in our children. We nurture them. We teach them. We love them. We hope. We hope they will be able to create a peaceful future where girls can go to school and boys of different religions can appreciate what is holy in all beings as they set aside their differences to save our Earth.

Photo:  The New Yorker

 

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June 30, 2014

Hot, Crowded, and Awesome

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(I Almost Didn’t Go)

To celebrate the Summer Solstice and support the Mental Health Association, our community has an outdoor yoga extravaganza (which was indoors this year).  I wasn’t going to go.  It would be hot and crowded.  I’d have to leave work early.  I wouldn’t be home to fulfill my dinner-making duties with my family.  Besides, it promised to be awesome.  That is my cue to stay away.  I have honed my scorn for awesome, crowded events over many, many years.  Indeed, this scorn has been passed down from generation to generation.  I come from a family of introverts, where anything too popular or too crowded is to be avoided.  Join in with whole-hearted enthusiasm?  Nah ah!  Better to stay home and be safe and do one’s duty.

One of my yoga friends and teachers, who happens to embrace – joyfully – all things awesome with wholehearted enthusiasm, reminded me that Matthew Sanford would be the guest teacher at this event.  Oh!  Hmmm.  The author of the amazing memoir, Waking, that heightened my devotion to yoga?!  Oh well.  That’s okay.  I don’t need to take a hot, crowded, awesome class with a yoga teacher who happens to be a paraplegic and has written eloquently and with great insight about the mind-body connection…or lack thereof.  Besides, I am too busy.  Busy, busy, busy.  That mind of mine is going off in a million directions with Very Important Thoughts.

But this quiet voice in my gut said, “Sally.  What are you doing?  You have been profoundly and forever affected by yoga.  Matt Sanford’s book had a huge impact on you.  You know you want to meet him and take class with him.  Embrace this opportunity with whole-hearted enthusiasm!”  I decided to listen to the quiet, intuitive voice in my gut instead of the busy, analytical voice in my head.  I invited my friend Gina, the one who enthusiastically accepts my most spontaneous invitations with touching appreciation, kindness, enthusiasm, and support.  My friend Gina who thinks the best of me, who thinks I am better than I am.  Dear Gina said yes.  Off we went.

We arrived and there was an assortment of sponsors advertising their wares.  Marketing, I scoffed.  (Full disclosure, I make my living by marketing.)  Gina left me at the registration table in a hurry to get to the first table to chat up the sponsor and see what they were offering.  Within 10 minutes, she had gotten valuable tips from a nutritionist and found a photographer who did beautiful yoga stationery.  I, on the other hand, was wondering how quickly I could dump the goody bag and all the flyers.  Then, we entered the hot and crowded space where the class would be.  Music was playing.  I saw many, many yoga friends.  I smiled.  Aware that I was in this funny space where my mind kept me at a distance from the experience, from other people, from whole-heartedly and enthusiastically being All In, I decided to be there.  All In.  With my friend.  With my yoga community, those I knew and those I didn’t know.  We found a space in the middle of the hot crowd and became part of the hot crowd.

Matt Sanford was introduced.  He began.   Speaking, teaching, in his wheelchair, about the mind-body connection.  He was simply profound.   And he was an ordinary guy who was impatient with the uncooperative sound system and with the shortness of time.  Determined to convey the messages he felt were most urgent to deliver to this hot, crowded group of devotees who wanted to soak in every word he said in one short class.  He had us feel our breath behind our hearts, notice that we felt better when our bodies were energetically in alignment, and appreciate the touch and support of a partner.  Some of my paraphrasing of his words of wisdom include:

  • The body is driven to live.
  • The body is the best home for the mind (to rest).
  • Take up space with your body.
  • The distraction of the mind prevents us from feeling and being present.
  • The silence of his paralyzed body is like the silence we will all experience as we age.
  • Notice the humming of energy through your body.
  • Feel your body.  Feel connected.  Feel.
  • Life is a gift – enjoy it!

After the class, everyone in this hot, crowded space held hands and sang and chanted and felt connected.  It was truly awe-some.

And to think I almost didn’t go.  I would have missed so much.

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Me with Matt.  He is inscribing my copy of Waking:  A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence.

Photos:  Gina took these photos.

 

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June 22, 2014

Why Did You Marry Him?

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The Father of My Children

When I fell in love with my husband, it was love at first sight. We shook hands in greeting and I was electrified by his touch. We met each other’s eyes and I fell hard and deep. I was not thinking about whether or not he would be a good father. He was handsome, strong, intelligent, loyal and truthful, and not particularly introspective, which was a relief. I was sufficiently introspective for both of us, and then some.

My children sometimes wonder about the differences between us, my yin to his yang, and ask, “Why did you marry him?” especially after he revels in teasing me with some comment or action that we all know I will disagree with or when is excruciatingly logical while I swirl in my anxious emotionality. After the glorious and passionate first phase of infatuation settled down, there was a compelling sense of belonging together, that we would be good partners. But nothing prepares you for parenthood. Except, perhaps, a desire to do it better than your own parents.

One area of commonality between us was that we both were children of undemonstrative fathers. The dysfunction was different and the effects were different, but one outcome was that we were united in our desire for a close family in which he would play an involved role. Because I worked full time, there was no other way. We set out to raise happy children who feel loved. We taught them to cook, ski, read, play tennis, knit, tell jokes, dance, nurture plants, enjoy music, watch movies, sail, value family, be alone, ride a bike, practice yoga, taste food, listen to their bodies, be responsible and diligent, write, figure out math problems, and know when to play hooky so as not to get the perfect-attendance award. If my husband was the go-to parent for dessert and tv-watching, playing sports and fixing things, I was the go-to parent for feeling comforted and for taking care of the day-to-day schedule. Together, we complemented each other well.

There is a new book out, Do Fathers Matter? by Paul Raeburn, that reviews all the recent science about the impact of fathers. Apparently, and incredibly, it is only recently that fathers have been acknowledged to have an impact on their offspring. Ask any person and they will be able to comment at length on how their father affected who they are, for better and for worse. In our gut we know that a wise and supportive father can lead to a confident and happy adult and that a judgmental, abusive, or absent father causes lasting damage to the psychological well-being of that person, and even that person’s children. A healthy and happy father can offset the effects of a mother’s depression. An involved father can delay the onset of his daughter’s puberty and sexual initiation. Certainly a nurturing father must be a crucial component of raising sons with emotional intelligence.

As we prepare to celebrate my daughter’s graduation from high school this week and transition her to college this August, I am spending this Father’s Day (and beyond) feeling grateful that I fell in love with a good man who complements me and loves our children (and me). While we have both passed on to her all that we love and all that we value, we are learning to let go and trust that we have given her all she needs to make good decisions, to love good people, to try new things, to find her own way. We will hold hands as she crosses the stage to accept her diploma. I will cry. He will swell with pride.  Together we have nurtured an amazing young woman.

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May 18, 2014

Fly Like an Eagle

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Time Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping … Into the Future

If the metaphor of life as a mountain is apt, then I am a bit past the summit, wondering how I missed it after all those years of working towards reaching it. Now, I am urgently trying to slow down my hurtling pace toward the valley. I thought the summit would be some grand career achievement.  Looking back at all that hard work on my career, with all the other bazillions of mid-level executives, it’s not the career moments that have been meaningful, it’s the connections with other people that have provided meaning. And my most profound joy has been being a mother to my children.

So you would think Mother’s Day would be a happy day. It is more than a happy day.  For me it is a day of intense emotion, so intense I don’t know what to do with it. Mother’s Day Eve, the intense emotion manifested itself as PAIN, from my heart, through my throat, and up to my ears. I first identified it as sadness and then realized it was mixed with anger. I don’t easily recognize anger, being much more comfortable and familiar with feelings of sadness, depression, and anxiety. Sadness is easy, an easy disguise for more negative emotions. Anger is much more difficult and it takes enormous care on my part to identify it accurately, to not swallow it inwardly, but to express it constructively. Even harder is to acknowledge the mixture of sadness, anger, loneliness, regret, disappointment, longing for what might have been and to let them go. Or at least let them coexist with happiness, to allow room for what is funny or joyful. So much is happy and joyful about my experience of being a mom. How can that joy take up more room in my heart so that there is less emphasis on regret and nostalgia?

I feel such pressure on Mother’s Day to have some kind of outpouring of honest emotion to my mother. Another Mother’s Day has come and gone and I have failed at taking any steps that will bring us closer. I have felt the emotion of love, loss, anger, regret and all that is associated with being a middle-aged daughter welling up in my chest and my throat, but I said nothing new to my mother. Perhaps I will never say all that I would like to say. Perhaps I will never hear all that I would like to hear. It simply may be all that it can be. Perhaps one way to honor my mother is by being more open and honest with my children than she was able to be with me.

It was a segment on NPR’s Studio 360 last Saturday that released the emotion. Beth Greenspan read a poem that is meaningful to her, through tears, about that time in adolescence when you realize that your child is fully separate from you with a world of his/her own that is unknowable to you. And that is how it should be. Part of the parent-child relationship is that the child must create their own life which does not include the parent and it is the parent’s job to allow that happen. The most joyful and heart-wrenching moments of parenting are all those steps they take away from you.

For Mother’s Day, I want my children to be who they are: on the road to becoming responsible and compassionate beings with a sense of ease and confidence. I want them to be less careful and less anxious than me and more able to express their emotions, especially love. I hope they take advantage of opportunities and find pursuits that are fulfilling and fuel their passion. I hope they know that I love them more than anything, certainly more than my career. I hope they know I am proud of them.  With my heart in my throat most of the weekend, sad and excited about what my children are becoming, I told them.  I love them.  Fly!

Into The Kingdom, by Mary Karr

As the boys bones lengthened,
and his head and heart enlarged,
his mother one day failed

to see herself in him.
He was a man then, radiating
the innate loneliness of men.

His expression was ever after
beyond her. When near sleep
his features eased towards childhood,

it was brief.
She could only squeeze
his broad shoulder. What could

she teach him
of loss, who now inflicted it
by entering the kingdom

of his own will?

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May 4, 2014

Paradise Revisited

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What is Vacation?

For me, vacation is when I have time. Time away from daily routines. Time to listen to the people I love. Time to speak to the people I love. Time to do something different and new. Time to do something familiar and comforting, but with a fresh approach.

With limited time and money for vacations, we have worked hard to make vacations a priority, planning meaningful family vacations that are an opportunity to nurture and connect, a time to take a break from our overscheduled daily lives and have fun together, and a source of memories, especially for our children’s memories of their years with us. Our vacations fall into a few categories. The visit to family and friends. The annual ski trip. And lately, our sailing trips, with my children and I learning to sail to find out if we share my husband’s passion.

For Spring Break, we traveled to the British Virgin Islands, chartering a 35’ sailboat for a week.  (We’re pretty sure it was the smallest boat in the Caribbean that week.)  We lived on the boat and crewed it ourselves for the week in what I expect will be the last official family vacation before our daughter goes away to college. My husband planned the trip. I was calm and cool (or pretended to be). After all, it was the third time we’d done this trip. But let’s face it, I have to work hard at being calm and cool and having fun is not something that comes easily to me.

What am I Going To Wear?!

Two days before vacation, I spied the cutest pair of white shorts in the store window of a local boutique. I had to have them! They were perfect. I suddenly realized that the vacation wardrobe I had decided would be fine was completely lacking in the perfect pair of white shorts and that I could not possibly have a good vacation without these shorts, not to mention the elegant gray tunic that would look perfect with my white pants. I should probably get that too. This panic over what to wear was vestigial anxiety, left over from old patterns that I’ve outgrown, but which rears up when I am under stress. For every special occasion of my life, I have dealt with my anxiety by shopping for the perfect outfit. If I had the perfect outfit, then I would: fit in; be liked; be admired; be confident; hide my flaws; mask my anxiety. I would impulsively buy whatever specific item was going to solve all my problems this time, only to regret the purchase later and still feel anxious and dissatisfied. Recognizing the old familiar anxious pattern, I did not buy the white shorts nor the elegant tunic.

What If We Die?

One day before vacation, my daughter whispered that she had a sore throat. I groaned. A cold. But then I panicked. What if it’s not just a cold? What if it’s strep and we can’t get to a doctor for antibiotics? Should we run around like lunatics the day before vacation and get a prescription? What if she dies? (I had a childhood friend who died of strep while on a family vacation when she was the age of my daughter. It Could Happen.) Recognizing the old familiar anxious pattern, I breathed, and told myself to STOP.  I was overreacting and being illogical. (I did watch the safety video on the airplane, identifying the exits and locating the flotation devices.)

Judgment Day

After my overt anxiety dissipated, I transitioned to a mixture of envy and judgment of my fellow tourists, who I deemed either fabulously wealthy, which made me jealous and feel inferior, or crass, loud and obnoxious drunks who didn’t respect the local culture nor the natural beauty, which made me scornful and feel superior. Neither feeling of inferiority or superiority, of measuring and comparison, allows for much social connection. Either way, on this third trip to the BVI, I was more acutely aware of how the tourists and the locals rubbed up against each other.  Paradise?

After the long travel day with 15 hours of taxis, planes, a ferry and customs; after our first day adjusting to cooking, sleeping, bathing and peeing on the boat (I try to poop only on land), oh and not to mention sailing; after our first quiet morning with coffee on the boat and our first evening watching the moon rise and looking for shooting stars, I began to settle. It usually takes me until Tuesday. To get out of my head. To focus on someone other than me, myself, and I. That is the antidote to anxiety. Focus on other people. Finally, with time to observe and listen to the people I love, I saw what was really going on.

My daughter was grappling with where to go to college. Not just where, but what kind of curriculum she should undertake. If she pragmatically decides to take the path of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math – underrepresented with women – what happens to her love of popular music, fashion, and pop culture? Can she be both a girly girl and a wicked smart engineer? Excited to leave home, scared to leave home, how does our relationship shift and evolve as she becomes an adult child?

My son was grappling with the hormones of puberty. Exhausted, he wanted to sleep all the time. Eager to please but afraid of making a mistake and inciting a scolding, he withdrew a bit. What does it mean to not be a little boy any more? How does he separate from us and become more independent, his own self, while still living with us, a teen child?

My husband was grappling with the responsibility of captaining the boat with us as crew, a not-very-skilled crew at that. Does he do everything himself? Does he delegate, with less than ideal results? When does he have fun? Perhaps the best day was when I said, “I am the Captain now!” I made him take a break and forced my son to take more responsibility as my first mate. Or perhaps the best day was our day off from sailing.  We just sat on the beach reading our books and taking walks and staring at the amazing clear turquoise water.

We were all grappling with the impending shift in our family. How will it be when my daughter is at college and my son is not so far behind? How will my husband and I connect when we have time for the two of us instead of pouring our energy into our children? When and what will our next family vacation be?

Jason Mraz sings “You don’t need a vacation if there is nothing to escape from.” I disagree, dear Jason. Everyone needs time and space away to reflect and reconnect. To experience the shift.

It happened, the shift. My daughter has made her decision and is behaving with a new maturity. My son is considering some options for the summer that will require some separation and independence, with awareness of his mixed feelings about this awkward, in-between state transitioning from childhood to manhood. My husband and I are talking about what our hopes and fears are as we get older and prepare for our next phase together.

Our week in the BVI was not always perfect, but it was paradise – a special and momentous vacation, with many memories.

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March 24, 2014

I Spoke to My Mom Today

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And My Mom Spoke to Me

This should not be remarkable, but it is.  After multiple surgeries to remove a recurring benign growth in her throat, she has gradually lost her voice over the last 30 years.  I believe that one’s sense of self is connected to one’s ability to tell your story.  Because she has lost the ability to speak, her self, her stories, and her memories have also gradually faded over the last 30 years.  When I visit her in person, there is a window of time during the visit when she galvanizes her mom persona and I connect with her.  But I don’t visit very often – fraught with old patterns – so most of our interaction is via telephone.  It is difficult to have an in-depth conversation with her in person and even more so on the phone, without eye contact and body language.  She hoarsely whispers and frequently doesn’t finish her sentences.  Our conversations usually consist of me glibly describing my activities and my kids’ activities, a little small talk about the weather and whether she can get outside for a walk, and an attempt to engage with her over whatever book she is reading.  Usually she is reading a book I gave her, because books are where we have always connected and reading together has always been a favorite shared activity.  I am never sure whether she is just going through the motions of reading or whether she is really taking in what she is reading.  She can’t find the words to describe the book to me, other than to tell me that she is enjoying it.

Last week, when we spoke and we completed our routine weekly conversation, she said, lucidly, “I am glad you are doing okay.”  She said it in a way that knocked the breath out of me.  I hadn’t told her anything deep.  She doesn’t know about my writing.  She doesn’t know about my therapy.  She doesn’t know about my midlife search for spirituality.  And yet, she knows?  I shivered.  And wondered if those were her last words to me.  A gentle maternal benediction.  After 51 years, I am doing okay and she can tell.  Perhaps there is more going on inside her than I realize.  Is that what she needs before she dies?  To know that her only child is okay?  I shivered.  That week I dreamt.

Healing

There is a dying withered being, like a malnourished starving child.  My mother?  My self?  My inner child?  It is almost as if she has no skin.  Her eyes are slits.  Oozing.  Tears?  Toxins?  My teacher is there.  She says: Touch her. Use Reiki. But don’t touch her tears, it could make you sick or kill you.  She leaves.  I am alone with this dying creature.  I can’t do this!  I don’t have Reiki power!  I am not a healer!  I am sure she is going to die. I place my hands on her.  She looks at me through those oozing slits. She has no voice and cannot speak. I muster all my compassion and healing energy to comfort her. It is not clear to me that she will survive. I wonder if she will die and feel honored to be the one with her if she passes on to wherever one goes when they die.

This week when we spoke, she was again lucid.  Her voice had some strength and she completed her sentences.  She could tell me what her book was about and that she hadn’t tackled The Goldfinch yet but it was next on her list.  (Same here.)  I told her about my amazing day with my daughter, playing hooky for her 18th birthday.  And then the conversation took a turn:

Mom:  “This is a big year for you.”

Me:  “Yes.  I am trying to spend as much time with my daughter as I can before she leaves for college.  I am going to miss her.”

Mom:  “More than you know.”

Me:  “Mom, did you miss me?”

Mom:  “Oh yes.  So much.”

Quiet pause.  Because neither one of us knows how to take this conversation to the next step.

Mom:  “I am thinking about living to 100.  It’s only 8 more years!”

Me:  Joyful laughter.

Me:  “Mom, is there anything you want to do before you die?”

Mom:  “No.”

Me:  “Just be?”

Mom:  “Just be.”

Quiet pause.  Because neither one us knows how to take this conversation to the next step.

Me:  “Bye Mom, I love you.”

Mom:  “I love you too.”

I wonder what we will talk about next week?

Image:  Visuddha, The Throat Chakra

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March 21, 2014

I Don’t Like Bacon Anymore

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Cooper

Actually, I haven’t liked bacon for a long time.  I have fond memories of liking the smell of bacon and I feel like I should like bacon but I don’t.  We use to have bacon for special occasion breakfasts until I realized that I hated the grease cleanup and didn’t really enjoy the taste, so I stopped initiating them.  Sometimes my family acts a bit wistful for these breakfasts, but not convincingly.

When out to celebrate my daughter’s birthday at one of our special occasion restaurants, I decided to splurge and ordered the roast chicken with apple wood smoked bacon.  When it arrived, the chicken was overcooked and dry.  Highly unusual.  Just as unusual, I sent it back.  They brought me another and it was just a touch less dry.  The smokey smell of the bacon was overpowering.  I could not enjoy it.  Maybe, maybe it was time.

I’ve been very gradually eating less and less meat for several years now.  Not quite putting a stake in the ground.  Rather, I’ve been tip-toeing toward pragmatic vegetarianism.  Eating less meat as long as it didn’t disturb anyone else’s meal plan.  As is my cautious way, afraid to put myself whole heartedly out there with a strong point of view.  I can argue both sides, affiliating with everyone while offending no one, and not really honoring who I am.  After all, I love a juicy roast chicken or a grilled steak or my husband’s homemade meatballs.  And while trying to feed a family of four with completely different food likes and dislikes, why add another challenging component to getting dinner on the table?  Declaring myself a vegetarian seems both selfish and an act of self-sabotage.  It’s hard enough to deal with dinner for the family every night of the week.  Do I really need another food rule to live by?

When I took the step of getting more serious about yoga, I became aware of one of the first principles of yoga, Ahimsa, which translates to nonviolence.  Many yogi’s are vegetarian and base their decision on this precept, to be kind to all living creatures.  That year I reflected on the ways I inflict harm on myself with my cuticle picking and anxious thoughts.  I started looking people in the eye and smiling more.  I noticed that I felt better and slept better when I ate less meat and so my gradual tapering off of meat began.  I found meatless recipes that made it into the family dinner repertoire.  I brown-bagged my lunch and ate out less frequently or at restaurants that had more vegetarian options.  I lost 15 pounds.

But I didn’t really question the values behind the food chain.  Why shouldn’t we eat meat?  It’s what we humans do.

When we went away for vacation last month, I found myself ridiculously sad to leave our two parakeets behind.  We got our first parakeet, Cooper, for Christmas two years ago to satisfy my son’s desire for a dog.  We felt our lifestyle was not amenable to having a dog and settled on a parakeet instead.  Cooper is attentive, social, sweet and adapted quickly to the family, hanging out with us as much as we let him.  We were still away for much of the day, however, and we worried that he was alone and lonely.  So Ginger joined the family a year later.  She has not acclimated as well, presumably because she has Cooper in a way that he didn’t have another bird to fall back on.  She is more wary and less friendly, with a very distinct personality to whom I’ve also grown very attached, identifying with her wariness.

I grew up with pets.  As an only child, I would fantasize about how wonderful it would be to have a companion and wheedle until my parents would give in.  Fish, a turtle, gerbils.  Then there were the more significant and long-lived pets:  George the guinea-pig who would oink excitedly when he heard the refrigerator door open, hopeful that some lettuce was coming his way.  Buddy the parakeet for whom I played a recording of me saying “Hi Buddy!” for hours, hopeful that he would someday say “Hi Buddy!” back.  He never did.  And Pansy the poodle, who became my mother’s dog, not mine, because she was the one who fed her and spent time with her.  When George and Buddy died, I felt enormous guilt.  After the initial infatuation, the drudgery of having a pet set in and there was only so much bonding I was able to do with a guinea pig and a parakeet as a young girl. 

With Cooper, and Ginger, there was some sense of wanting to alleviate my guilt.  Could I take better care of them than I did of Buddy?  I watched them.  I looked them in the eye, trying to understand their moods, imagine what they might be feeling, trying to create a nice life for them, as much as a caged suburban life can be for a wild creature, even if bred for caged suburban life.

Why is it okay to eat chicken and not parakeet?  Why is it okay to eat pig and not dog?  Why is it okay to eat cow and not cat?  After looking in Cooper’s eyes and feeling his heartbeat and his complete trust, I don’t think I can eat animals any more.  Truly, he has a soul.  But what about squishing bugs and eating fish, delicious fish?  Where does one draw the line?

After reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, where the man and the boy are the good people in search of other good people while avoiding being killed and eaten by the marauding gangs of bad people, I wondered, if my life depended on it, what would I do?

I am increasingly uncomfortable with considering myself and other humans as better than other animals and entitled to eat them.  I am increasingly uncomfortable with keeping quiet about what I believe to be right for me.

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February 18, 2014

Making Peace With Barbie

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Unapologetic

Barbie is polarizing.  In case you’re not aware of the current debate, Mattel is paying Sports Illustrated to be part of the magazine’s 50th Anniversary “Legends” issue, on sale today, by featuring 55-year-old Barbie in a promotional campaign named, “Unapologetic.”  Get it?  Both brands have banded together in an aggressively defensive posture, proudly asserting that their objectification of women has been good for women – that the famous SI Swimsuit cover models are now legends and successful businesswomen, just as Barbie has provided amazing leadership roles models for girls.  Hmmph.

I was not allowed to play with Barbie.  My mother, an early feminist and charter subscriber to Ms. Magazine, scoffed at Barbie.  Blonde, with a ridiculously unrealistic figure, she was deemed a too-sexy airhead and not a good role model for a serious, smart, ambitious brunette.  She arguably spawned a whole generation of dumb blonde party girl jokes, some clean and some not-so-clean, but all presenting blondes as superficial, like:

Blonde Barbie 1, standing across the street from Neiman-Marcus couldn’t figure out how to get across the street to go shopping.  She spies another blonde Barbie coming out of the store.

Blonde Barbie 1:  “Yoo-hoo!  Hi! How do I get to the other side of the street?”

Blonde Barbie 2:  “You ARE on the other side of the street!”

Ha, Ha.  Makes me laugh every time.

While my mother’s judgment and scorn of Barbie seeped into my thinking, one of my favorite memories was playing with Barbie at a neighbor’s house.  There were a lot of kids in the family, a lot of built in playmates, and the girls had multiple Barbies and all the accessories:  a lot of cheap, pink, plastic stuff which I coveted.  Or maybe it was the built in playmates I coveted.  Even though Mattel dutifully introduced lots of alternative dolls who were not blonde, we all wanted to be the main event, the popular center of attention, the blonde Barbie who got Ken.  At least that’s what I remember wanting and squabbling over:  to be the popular girl who gets the boy.

So when my daughter was a little girl and wanted Barbie dolls, I paused.  The judgmental voice was still inside me.  Barbie!  What a misogynistic toy.  No way!  But there was another voice inside me.  I don’t want my daughter to feel embarrassed or ashamed for wanting to fit in with other girls, the way I felt ashamed.  Barbie is, at least potentially, a strong woman and embodies the imagination and the dreams of the girl who is playing with her.  Barbie is a way for a girl to imagine being a woman.  What do girls want to be?  Well, aside from princesses who rule, they want to be women, like their moms and the other grown women they see.  What better way to play out the kind of women they want to be than through play-acting scenarios with dolls and other girls?  The best part of playing with Barbie was styling her hair and changing her outfits.  Because what better way to play out the kind of woman you want to be than by trying on different outfits, different personas?  It’s how we learn, imagine, and grow.  And Ken?  Well, he’s a sexless accessory – very safe for a young girl.  You know there’s going to be men in your life, but you don’t quite know what their role will be.  It’s all about you and your Barbie avatar, represented by your hair and clothing and overall style.  Like the prom, it’s about the girl and her dress not the guy.  He comes later, or should come later, after she figures out more about who she is and who she wants to be.

Still, when we tackled a construction project on our house which required my daughter to move out of her room, I was not sorry to pack up a variety of partially clothed Barbies with tangled hairstyles into a bin and stick it in the attic.  When the construction project was over and she got her own room, she was not interested in her naked Barbies any more.  Or maybe she was, but I was happy to encourage her to forget about them and leave them languishing in the attic.  Several years later, she begged me for a baby doll, a real baby doll that drank a bottle, wet her diaper, and cried.  I was stunned.  Who is this girly girl of mine?  I tried to honor who she is and searched for the perfect baby doll.  But it was too late.  It was not the perfect baby doll she envisioned, she was now a teenager, and my judgmental voice had been too dominant. 

Around this time, my daughter and I watched Legally Blonde, the romantic comedy where blonde California girl Elle Woods shows up her superficial boyfriend and his more seemingly appropriate fiancé, the elite prep school East Coast brunette, Vivian, by using her life experience and her knowledge and intuition for a big courtroom win.  Blondes Have More Fun; They Have More Friends; And They Are Smart and Win!  I loved the movie.  Maybe you can be fun-loving and smart?  It softened my judgmental voice.

When I heard about the marketing campaign for Barbie within the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, the judgmental voice kicked in, aghast.  And then I realized that it’s not Barbie I object to.  I’ve made my peace with Barbie.  In fact, I admire Barbie.  She is adorable and accomplished and has created many hours of imaginary play for girls everywhere who deserve more credit for knowing that success is not just about unrealistic physical measurements and a come hither stance.  What I object to is that Mattel thinks that Barbie needs to pose for the SI Swimsuit issue, a magazine for men not for young girls, in order to gain publicity for the doll and presumably to sell more dolls.  Are these men going to buy Barbie dolls?  Barbie the lawyer, doctor, astronaut, teacher, corporate executive, artist, politician doesn’t need to model in a sex-lite magazine for men.  She is better than that.  Hey, what I’d really like to see is 55-year-old Barbie embarking on her meaningful midlife encore career while on her meaningful midlife spiritual journey for enlightenment, discovering that loving others is more fun than desperately seeking love from others.  I guess that wouldn’t sell very well.

Image shows the cover-wrap of Sports Illustrated magazine’s 50th anniversary annual swimsuit issue. (AP Photo/Sports Illustrated)

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