Another year passing by

As our neighbor across the street practices her opera runs and my babies are (finally) napping, I have a sweet moment to consider 2012...

Another year has snuck past us, whirling us along in the currents. We are all older, and maybe a little wiser but it seems there is always more to learn. The older I get, the more I realize the ocean of human context, human emotion, is so vast I will never be able to anticipate exactly how to weave through it all very masterfully. I guess the best I can hope for is that I will minimize my harm to others, and that that those that I hold dear, hold on to, I hope they know how much I love them. And that I can let go of anything, and move beyond things I can't begin to understand that other people do to survive in their own right-those things that sometimes hurt me. These human experiences make it clear that there are forever things, and season things and they are hard lessons about what truth and love really look like, and how unconditional forgiveness is part of that deal.

I have learned that when I said it was impossible to make lasting friendships as an adult, I was completely (gloriously) wrong. I had a theory that you could only cement relationships through knowing each other in formative years, weaving into each other, growing together, but my beautiful friends and neighbors here in my neighborhood have proven that a foolish notion. I have met some of the most amazing women I could ever hope to meet in the past 18 months, through thoughtful, intentional parenting. I have come to realize that home is truly where your heart is, where your heart speaks, and that there are no hard, fast rules about what that place looks like. I thought that the best place to raise my kids was in a neighborhood in some suburb where there are good, safe schools (probably down south), and where neighbors know each other (now I think suburbia would end me)....but what I have found is such profound safety in a place where people assume that couldn't exist, and a tight-knit community in a giant city that feels exactly like I always hoped home would feel like. I love Rogers Park. I love the people that live here. I love the Tibetans who wear traditional skirts and Elmo t-shirts and flip flops, and the well-spoken homeless people, and the plastic bags swaying poetically in the naked winter trees. I love the frozen lakefront with the smooth rocks sleeping underneath, waiting to sway again when spring comes. I love that I know the names of the owners and managers of our neighborhood haunts, and that every single person I meet who lives here is equally in love with this place-would never choose to be anywhere else. I love walking down the street and always seeing someone I know, and the safety and security of knowing my community always has my back should we need anything. We have a parent group that is a place of support and love and exchange of ideas, and stuff, and information. We had picnics and gatherings all spring and summer and fall, enjoying our bond of parenthood. And truly, each and every neighbor is amazing, and beautiful, and profound...each conversation humbles me and challenges me and teaches me just how complex and strong these gossamer strings are that bind us. I have searched for home all my life, and with all the instability of my home as a child, I know I have finally found it-here, in an imperfect place, full of imperfect people (just like me), doing the best they can. But they do it without pretense, without shame, and openly. I love my home, and my friends, warts and all. Unconditionally.

My girls, my angel girls, are my greatest achievement. All my professional life's work, all my reputation as a scientist, my respect, my nominations for high awards and early promotions-they don't hold a candle to my children. My babies that at this moment are dreaming their own dreams and thinking their own thoughts- the babies whose life energy inexplicable passed through my body to their own. They are absolute magic, and they are so difficult-the personification of light and dark. They show me what the masters mean about context and that you can't truly know anything without knowing the anti-anything. Every day they teach me more about my values and my beliefs-every day they challenge what I think I know and prove to me that I should never get too comfortable, that things are always changing, and that instead of trying to control things too much that there is tremendous value in observation, and humor, and learning to be malleable. Everything changes-every single second. The people who accept and eventually find peace in that will live long and happily. The others will manifest frustration in chronic illness, disease, and and stress. No one has ever been able to make that lesson more clear than my sentient, purposeful, very self-possessed daughters. They are not extensions of me-they are themselves. I can try to guide them, and then get out of their way. Most of all my job is to accept them and love them, and try to be open and withhold judgement from their life choices. At the end of their lives, those choices will have molded them to be who and what life (what God) intended them to be-to teach them to become, and to also give important lessons to everyone around them.   

So, as 2012 ends and 2013 begins-I am grateful. I am grateful for our tiny space in the universe and that it is so beautiful. I am grateful for family, friends, health, and our home. I am grateful most of all for all the love that surrounds me and all the people that manifest that so palpably. I look forward to the beauty and challenges of the new year and hope that I can handle my moving through the tides with acceptance, grace, and humor. They say the best is yet to come; judging by what has been, I can't wait.

(New Year's Eve with neighbors and about 15 sugared up spastic kids = 1000% awesome)