Birthday on the Range

 

 

My sweet baby Addie-

Today you are FOUR. We had the “best birthday party EVER” Sunday. Maybe you will remember, or maybe you won’t, that you adore your little animals (note: if you are grown and reading this, this habit/hobby of lining your animals in rows, organized by color or species is when I noticed you are Type A and possibly a little OCD about order:

 

You adore big animals. And I couldn’t think of a better birthday for you than one that involved ponies and farm animals. So, we had your birthday at Memory Lane Stables. You rode ponies (Bob, and your all time favorite, Rosie, as it were-we have been to this place a few times before and we are all painfully aware that you know exactly what you like), you had a petting zoo with a pig, a miniature pony (with “fluffy hair”), and a lamb….there was even a chicken roaming the grounds. All of your closest friends were there and many of our closest friends were there. It was a perfect day-as you said “the best day of [your] life”. I even made you a horse birthday cake.

On days like that-the ones where you are surrounded by that much love from that many people-I don’t question how we’re doing as parents, and how we are doing in life. You know you are loved, and I hope you always know that. In our “small town” neighborhood in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the United States we have found a gold mine…wonderful friends and their amazing kids-the kind of thing I don’t think my parents ever had in any of our small Florida cities we lived in. I want that for you-the feeling of belonging and community. I want it for myself.

Don’t ever forget the people who love you. You can completely take for granted that Papa and I love you, but remember that you have friends that would drop everything to help you, to hug you, or to talk to you when life feels overwhelming or sad. Remember they are also the ones who will celebrate the tribulations of life with you-your best friends will see your accomplishments as their own. If they seem resentful or jealous and aren’t lifting you up, that has nothing to do with you-you keep going, keep moving ahead, and don’t let anything stop you.

Remember to respect your dreams and let them guide you. Find your passion, find love. Always make choices that make your heart truly happy-those will *always* be the ones that come from a place of respect for yourself. If you take care of yourself, you are more awesome for everyone around you-all the time.

So, I am still kissing you all over your face. I am still relishing snuggling your tiny self as much as I can. I love being where you come when you are feeling sad or need some love. I love you busting through the back door after school, excited to share the day’s adventures with me. I love watching you play with your animals, happy as a clam, for hours. You are silly, and sweet, and emotionally intelligent, and kind. And you know what? I love you for “all the days”. (that’s your Addieism for your greatest expression of love). I am so lucky to be your mama.

 

 

Extrovert

Gillian is a born and bred performer. She is enough of a ham to be like me and want peoples' attention even if the actual act ties her in nervous knots, but enough like Sean to be very reserved and focused when she is up in front of people (ie, not a showman, like her crazy little sister). There have been no shortage of opportunities to let her "look at me!"ness shine on as the school year comes to a close.

The first end-of-year performance was the Spring Musical. I adore the music teacher, who worked herself to death to put together a wonderful idea and get the kids ready for a true production. Another arty mama and I painted the backdrop (24 ft canvas-by far my biggest painting ever) for the show, which turned out pretty well (mock up of Van Gogh's "The Bedroom"):

                                                                      Setting up/decorating

I spent most of that Wednesday helping decorate, but for all my volunteerism I got reserved 3rd row center seats, which-because it always ends up being standing room only-is worth its weight in gold.

Preschool performed Do Re Me, which we didn't record because we had a technical issue, but we did get the second song (which was a hot mess and full of nose picking for Addie!). Kindergarten performed "I won't grow up" from Peter Pan and "Tomorrow" from Annie. The entire show was a boy dreaming about being on Broadway, so all the song the various grades performed were show tunes.


Last weekend, Gillian had her group violin recital. This, luckily, is what Addie did during the very long wait for Gillian's group to perform (she was the best behaved 3 year old in the place, maybe for the first time ever!).




Gillian will miss out on the solo recitals because we will be in Florida on the date that was selected (after we made travel plans), but she is more than happy with one recital (though you'll recall how handsomely she made out from her recital last year). But here she is playing a Minuet-how proud were we? Well, look how I took over the student seating as soon as they left so I could be close to the stage to record her (obnoxious, I agree, but a girl has to do what she has to do).


And finally, Gillian has been taking an after-school Spanish enrichment class from the Little Linguists Academy from Señora Santiago. She does have Spanish twice a week in school, but this is extra just because I wanted to mix up her after-school time in a constructive way (she also took Art for All for two sessions after school this year). Anyway, she *loves* spanish!!! Here is her last performance of the year!!


We plan to enroll Addie at the music school in the fall. It will be interesting to see what kind of performer she turns out to be!

*THIS* is why I am tired

My kids call my name approximately 1,000 times a day. In this satirical piece, Gillian gives you a glimpse of the insanity that is my life. Except it's this x 2. Every day. All day. Except when I'm at work, which, ironically, is my peaceful time.

Right here

Sunday was Mother's Day. I woke up to my beautiful daughters in my bed, hugging and kissing me. My husband brought a cup of fresh latte and some beignets he scored from a restaurant he plays a gig at once a month. The girls wanted to stay and snuggle, and gave me a massage. They brought me beautiful gifts they made at school. Breakfast came, in bed, and I didn't have to do a thing. I watched the girls' show with them on the couch, and we went to mass (Gillian asked why we had to go to mass if this was a special day, and Sean said "well, moms just like to go to mass, ALL THE TIME.").

Somehow as I was there in that church, on that crisp spring day, I felt my mother all around me. I felt her in every other mother with their children in the pews..every mother who had lost a child..every mother carrying a child...and every mother who had moved on. Addie asked why I was crying, kneeling at the pew. I told her I was happy and sad and humbled. I get to be counted among the masses of those who have given life...who has been given the privilege to manifest creation. After communion, our priest asked all the mothers to come to the front of the church, and we got a standing ovation. And I could see my little family in the back of the church waiving and proud, and I couldn't stop from getting teary-because of all those people in that sea of people, that little family belongs to me. No matter how terrible or distracted or angry I get, they forgive me and love me in spite of myself. And as the entire church extended their hands to bless us in prayer, I started counting my blessings....for love and faith; for family and friends; for health, meaning, and work.

Because no matter what I do for the rest of my life, nothing will compare to creating Gillian and Adelaide. And I wish my mother, who loved to brag on me, could have met them-my greatest achievement.

Mothers are our conduit to conscious existence and our portal to this plane of being. There is divinity there. And they carry the balance of the family on their backs...there is something spot on in the reverence the Catholic church has for Mary, the virgin mother. The one who manifested the savior.

So, I'll get off my serious kick here, and will explain my long absence. Suffice it to say I am ruminating as the seasons change, in spring, and how life bursts forth out of nothing and how beautifully that parallels motherhood.

                                 Addie and I at the Mother's Day Tea at her school last Friday

Letting go

Last night at our Mutiny meeting (see previous post) we discussed what we hoped to get out of our experiment. It was pretty powerful and humbling to sit with such an incredibly diverse and interesting group of women.

One thing the book is driving home for me is the abundance/wealth we have compared to the rest of the world. Two interesting things the author says in the book that stayed with me:
1. If you make $35,000 a year, you are among the world's top 4% most wealthy; if you make $50,000 a year, you are among the top 1% most wealthy people IN THE WORLD.
2. Money does not increase happiness after income reaches $13,000 a year...at some point it's related to a decrease in happiness.

We discussed  at great length that our country creates a culture of inferiority and materialism that is so dishonest, and so greedy that it begs to be challenged. We discussed what we opine that we need. Most people said "cuter clothes", "nicer things", or the like. I thought long and hard about that study question and said "financial security". I explained my parental dynamic with money-dad worked, sometimes, mom killed herself working 80 hours a week at a convenience store and hid money from my dad so she could make sure the rent could get paid if he decided to quit his job (which he did often). I said to these Mutiny Sistas (that is what we are calling ourselves ;-): "I make a good income, and yet, it feels we are always just squeaking by. My question would be "what amount of money/savings/security is enough for me?!?" A followup is, "are there choices I can make that will make this concern go away?" So, I don't feel particularly attached to things, per se, but to security. That was a profound observation for me. Because I believe in the laws of attraction, if I FEEL and give thanks for great abundance, I will attract that. But abundance doesn't necessarily only mean money.

The Tao Te Ching says "chase after money and security, and your heart will never unclench". One of the readings from last night's discussion was from Matthew 19:

The Rich and the Kingdom of God
16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,
19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

I think this cuts to the core of the issue-I don't necessarily think this is literally "rich people can't go to heaven" but that people who amass and value things above all else cannot possibly sit in communion with God/the universal everything. Their lives are cluttered with amassing wealth and possessions. So, Jesus told the man to LET THAT GO if he truly wants to be Godlike. He has to let go of the one thing that distracts him from being real, and present, and connected. For other people it would be other things (some people honestly don't care about money).

In Buddhism, suffering is equated with an attachment to things-whether those things be material possessions, expectations, ideals, people, etc. If you think about it, what makes you suffer? Wishing someone acted a different way, felt a different way, that you made more money, had a bigger house, that you had a new car...? What if we could wipe the lenses clear and just accept things as they are and not expect them to be any different? What a huge burden to put down-LETTING IT ALL GO. Then we're wide open to connect, to be charitable, to be loving and compassionate. There's nothing clouding our vision anymore.

My goal here, is to refocus on the abundance I already have. I told a very sweet story of us in mass last Sunday (ironically, as we talk of simplifying, the first Sunday of Lent). We went up to take communion (and for the girls to get blessings, which they *LOVE*), and went back to our pew to kneel and pray. Addie knelt obediently next to me ("wait, did you say YOUR child did anything obediently?", you ask-yes, why yes it was). I was praying, asking God to help us be patient with one another, kind, compassionate, gentle, gracious....then I asked that God help me focus on gratefulness...of the blessings and the abundance in my life. And at that very moment, Addie stood up and whispered in my ear, "Mama, I love you sooooooooo much" and hugged my neck and kissed my cheek. And then I was weepy, because how much clearer of a message does a person need than that? My abundance begins and ends with LOVE-of my family, my community; of others.

That made me grateful that I chose to invite all the friends that have been so kind to us, that have raised me up, listened to, and fed me and the girls in their own humble homes in the past few months, to our house to eat in community last weekend. That night I looked around and was struck by how vital these connections are...how important it is to return kindness with kindness. And wow, what a wonderful community we have. Abundance.

Time for Change

It's February in Chicago. Which means we're all over it. We're impatient for Spring. The long, cold, grayness has taken it's toll. Seasonal Affective Disorder is at it's highest high.

These transitional months are interesting for me. I observe where I'm at emotionally, and this is when I am usually ready to push myself somehow. And this late-winter is no different. This time the change found me.

I have an amazing friend who I have mentioned before, who has made it her mission to serve others. She came back from four years in Africa changed with how she views wealth, blessings, and values. A few weeks ago, she challenged me and some other ladies with 7: Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.

The book is summarized like this: 7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence. In the spirit of a fast, they pursued a deeply reduced life in order to find a greatly increased God.

At first I thought, "well, I'm not sure about this....maybe it's preachy, maybe it's self-righteous, maybe it's ________" (insert other things that would get me out of having to take a hard look at the way I live my life). I should know better, since Roxanne is so genuine. This is really a group of women who want to get closer to God by cutting out the fat out of life. There are 13 or 14 of us-some single moms, some not moms, others married, some stay-at-home moms, some working moms, etc., etc.

It's interesting how this parallels my beloved Buddhism, and how they believe that you sit with God when you meditate in silent communion with yourself. I remember meditating for about 6 weeks rather religiously (ha!) for 10 tiny minutes a day, and how that changed my patience with myself and the people and circumstances around me. That communion with God was like a soul massage-like a recharge. I observed the suffering of other people, and their useless rage against circumstances (like a cat trying to fight its way out of a paper bag), and realized that to let go of that completely unserving emotion, you have to just accept it, sit with it, and let it go. But, then my "busy-ness" crept in and I lied to myself that I didn't have time to meditate and that I wasn't in a calm enough state (which is exactly when you SHOULD meditate), etc. etc.....anything to not have to sit in honesty with myself. Why not? I suppose I still have a lot of work to do with compassion for my own expectations of myself, shortcomings, and mistakes. So, because I seem to be happy to give until I am bone dry and not recharge the well, I find myself right where I was when I decided I needed to find a way to connect with everything.  Let me just explain that that encompasses God, which is and created everything. Some people call that "the universe" or "Nirvana" or "The Tao".

Since every sentient being originated from and returns to the source, there is an essence of God in every thing that IS. To that end, it serves us to connect with and recognize and sit with our commonness. We are all threads of God. We are stronger woven together, open to eachother, compassionate and sitting in non-judgement of one another.

So, that need to be present and feel connected is what is driving me to do this. I honestly believe that if I can simplify my life, I will be less distracted by the clutter in the world, and can spend more time in the moment. Intentional living, and mindfulness is how we open up our pathways of love and charity and compassion-and how we are REALLY HERE for and with the people we need to be here for. That's how I learn to listen hard and be patient with what my family members are telling me (verbally or not) and how I can open my ears to my calling. I'm cleaning out my pathways, y'all. This month we begin with the most basic thing: Food.

I love sweets. After not eating cheese or milk for about 30 years, I discovered it in my 30s, and haven't looked back since. I have always had issues with wheat/gluten intolerance-but I never cared enough to stop eating all the wonderful things made of wheat. This has made me have some serious GI problems all my life. I was made aware of these issues by seeing a dietician years ago...but just like meditation, I let that fall to the side after being pretty good for a while and feeling great. Because I don't matter as much as everyone else. LAME. How am I supposed to be a good wife and mother if I feel subpar all the time? If I am not fueling my body with something it can use? How am I supposed to hear the guidance and messages the universe sends my way if my gut and mind are cluttered with junk? So, my commitment to making space for my connection with everything is to make sure food is not why I am feeling crummy...to make sure my body and mind have what they need to be present and open. Immediately, my second day of no wheat, gluten, dairy, and 99% of sugar (I allow myself 1/2 tsp in my morning coffee) I got hit over the head. I was being heard.

I am no rap connoisseur (I had to google the refrain to get the full lyrics and rapper), but I have *never* heard Christian rap at the Jackson station (where I get on/off the train for work) in my life. Don't know if I created a space for my intentions to be acknowledged, or clarity is already setting in enough to hear messages, but Whoa-universe is yelling "wake up!" ((1 TH 5:6) "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.") I also was standing waiting for a train at rush hour long enough to hear the entire song (usually, the trains are closer together). Just thought I'd share-the angel at the Jackson Station was rapping a song for me and anyone else searching ;-) . I won't post the whole thing, but here are some lyrics that make the point:


"Show me what I got to do
To bring me closer to you
Cause I'm gonna go through
What ever you want me to
Just let me know what to do
Lord give me a sign!"

And, so far so good with the changing my eating habits. I fell off the wagon on Valentines day-how could I not enjoy cake with my babies? But I paid for it with nausea and a temporary return to feeling terrible-and I decided no cake is worth that feeling. I do feel like I have a bit more clarity as the days move on. I decided to start trying the meditation again, because I need it. Every parent does.

Broken

Addie was opining about how she wanted a different family, how we are mean, and how she doesn't like this house. As usual when she's ranting like this, I said very calmly, "I'm sorry to hear that because we all love you." Usually when I say that she says "no, you DON'T LOVE ME." Today she said, "I don't want your love. Your love is BROKEN!" And so began our evening of toddler drama.

Just stop a minute

I took nearly three weeks off over the holidays. Maybe a lot of you are busy bees when you're home too-buzzing aroung and taking care of all the things you don't have time to do when you are working all day. It took a while for me to slow down enough to stop buzzing. I find that I vibrate on a high frequency all the time-which generally makes me a very productive person. Most days I start before 5 am packing lunches, and I leave the house before 5:30; I work a solid 10 hour day, take the train home, and immediately start dinner; then it's bath time, lotion and jammies time, and one-snuggle-on-the-couch-and-show time; then books and milk, and bed (for them) and straightening up (for me). I go until I collapse into bed, like most parents. The few times I have had some time off and was able to come to a standstill kindof result in a coma-like state for me-my head gets fuzzy, I feel really, really tired, my eyes get dry, and I feel a little groggy and brain dead.

These past few weeks-an honest-to-God-staycation, I didn't kill myself editing videos, or making a photo book for anyone, or overbook my life (or the girls' lives) with social outings (always well-intended), or wear myself out running chores when everyone else was sleeping or recharging. This time, I recharged-I took naps with my girls, we played my little pony and veterinarian, and we just hung out. I did the other stuff too, but I had more time to get reaquainted with my children in a very profound way. And you know what? My girls are absolutely, breathtakingly awesome.

When I talk to other parents about kids, we can sometimes have this haggard, pained overtone because someone in the house "is in a phase" or because someone isn't getting sleep, or because (in my case it's true) siblings are at eachother's throat every second. Wheedling, and whining, and arguing, and fighting can wear you down-really wear you down. Especially when you're tired and stressed out for one reason or another. It's a lot like your marriage-when it's hard to focus on the awesome when the annoyance of the every day starts to grow seeds of resentment inside you. Then somehow, all we notice is what isn't right and what didn't get done. We forget to be grateful.

It took a while-to meditate on that...to take a bite and savor that bit of truth. I have been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and I'm convinced that many family woes can be remedied with Thanksgiving. Maybe in a marriage, partners would be more forgiving of eachother's shortcomings or mistakes if they knew they were loved and appreciated; if they were cherished and adored. Maybe as a parent, we could understand that helping define boundaries that lend security to our children and constant criticism of children (that can become habitual and destroy our magical child's self-esteem) are very fine lines to walk.

And so, when I feel like a grouchy wet cat that MY kids are the only one in their music institute that wait for their lessons in a common area NOT EVEN CLOSE TO patiently (while most kids quietly sit and do homework or obediently do some other quiet activity (iPad, movies, you name it), Gillian won't get up off the floor under the waiting bench facing her teacher's office door; or maybe the girls get into a pretend-I'm-going-to-hit-you match and start in on eachother in the silent-as-a-church hallway; or how Addie might deliberately swing something into the doors of the offices where people are taking lessons to test me.....), I should remind myself that these kids are MY KIDS. My discipline should come from a place less about my concerns over the comfort of people I don't know and how annoyed they are by my kids, and more a place of tolerance for them being children. After all-it is my choice to take them there in the first place. Where does respect for other people's comfort end and harsh over-judgement begin, anyway (the balance part of parenting is off the chain!)?

So, during my break, and our naps, and our snuggling, and all our conversations, I settled into a different vantage point-one where I could REALLY observe them-beyond all the silly stuff that can block the view of their precious true selves. What if I chose to be humbled by the fact that they want to play with me every.single.second instead of getting bent out of shape because I planned on getting something done that day? What if I sit with them on the couch in the mornings we're all home and watch their insipid shows instead of doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen after making breakfast-and luxuriate in the beauty of holding tight to my babies-that-won't-be-babies-much-longer and simply breathing together? What if we really savor all sitting down and coloring together and admire eachother's handiwork-recognizing that these moments are absolutely numbered (oh, how they love to make and illustrate story books right now!)?

Here is how reframing taught me to look at a situation differently. For several months, Addie has done or said something mean, and when we call her on it (with even, non-yelling, patience 99% of the time) she gets really upset and cries and tells us she is waiting for us to say we're sorry or demands that we say we're sorry. For the longest time, I refused to apologize and always tried explaning that no one yelled and that if she hits someone or says something unkind, she should be the person apologizing. One night I had an epiphany and asked her if it was hard to say she's sorry-and she admitted that it was. I asked her if it made it easier to say she was sorry if I said it first, and she said it did. Now she will sometimes tell me she needs help saying she's sorry when she does something she's ashamed of and we tell her it's not ok. I finally stepped back away from my frustration at her stubborn refusal to apologize and realized that her shame made her stubborn about apologizing-much like something I had to overcome as a young adult. Compassionate awareness in this instance is changing the game. I don't want to break her for the sake of "showing her a lesson"; I want to model the things I want her to weave into how she deals with people.

All of this to say I'm not even close to a perfect parent. I don't even know what that means. When I think good parenting means constantly engaging children, I read studies about how detrimental that is to a child's independence, self-reliance, and creativity. We shouldn't be telling them what they should be doing, thinking, drawing, and playing every second...constant parent-guided activity/structure creates a dependence on parents that can have terrible outcomes when those kids leave home. I really think there is a natural social order that plays out, and kids teach eachother what is acceptable much of the time, with or without parents stepping in to correct situations. Like, if you're being a jerk, no one wants to play with you. I am even now trying to deflect tattling for the girls to address their own problems-e.g. "did you tell her that it hurt your feelings before talking to me about it?"

It's really easy to second-guess yourself with the false front given us all with how happy and perfect social networking makes every family on earth seem. One thing I know-it's important to talk about the challenges and difficulties of growing another human being because it's therapeutic, and it helps us process a path forward when we're in a rough patch. It gives us more ammo for our parenting tool box. I stopped trying to keep up with the Jones Family well before Addie joined us-because chances are, they're at least as dysfunctional as we are. Every single family has their own challenges-things you can't even begin to imagine. I know my set of challenges are the ones given to me because I am specially equipped to handle them with the strength allocated to me by my life experience. Every person has experienced hurt, and loss, and heartbreak that you may never know unless they tell you. I'm pretty sure perfect parenting is an oxymoron. I think at the end of the day, parenting success is to just love your kids and get out of their way, and try to be kind to yourself during the journey. I think we should deal with other parents and children with great compassion, no matter the behavior, because they might desperately need some love and support.

The point of my rambling? I reaquainted with the girls. I got all wrapped up in them and them in me, and it was luxurious and humbling and fantastic. When you have nowhere you have to go, and nothing you have to do, you have to sit together in complete honesty. I stopped fighting to do anything. We just were. And wow, these girls are beautiful, and funny, and charming, and sweet, and brimming with love. They are really kind. They are polite and creative and good. I was humbled by the pride I felt. For once, I let myself feel like we had done something right, that we had parented well. My children are good people, really good people, aside from all the evolving-into-conscious-beings pains and figuring-out-their-place-amongst-the-stars pains. And I am proud that they are so spunky that they can barely sit still in a quiet room, and so passionate and self-assured that they argue their side of a story until it makes me insane. That is who I birthed-they are mine. And I love them exactly as big, loud, stubborn, and spirited as they are.

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)

Angels & Demons

When I was 11 years old, my mother was the victim of a violent crime. She was shot-in the head-by a mentally ill 16 year old boy. She was working at a convenience store in a small town in central Florida, LaBelle, where my dad (a PTSD-ridden Vietnam Vet) had gotten a job teaching high school history and economics.

In many ways, LaBelle was a small town the way Newtown, Connecticut is a small town-except not nearly as affluent. When I lived there in the early 1980s, there was 1 elementary school, 1 middle school, and 1 high school. At last census, LaBelle had less than 5000 residents, and its claim to fame is the annual “Swamp Cabbage Festival”. I remember how excited we were when we got a Burger King-because there was only one other restaurant in town (White’s). We also had one grocery store, and had to drive to Lehigh acres, 25 miles away, to go to the closest department store-Kmart (but I really loved the smell of all the orange blossoms in the winter on the way there). I spent many, many hours of my young life “exploring in the woods” by myself or with my friends, even as young as 8 years old (we moved there when I was in 3rd grade). I spent many more hours swimming with friends, unattended, in the community pool on the main road outside our subdivision, and within sight of my mother’s convenience store (where, inevitable on summer days, we would go and beg her for candy and soda and play the Pac Man machine). By all accounts, we lived in a safe, small town, where everyone knew everyone.

In 1985, my mom was working her usual long shift when a 16 year old boy entered her store with a pillowcase over his head. He wielded a gun, and demanded the money in the safe and cash register. My mom gave him everything she had access to, but he was nervous and told her to go into the storage room with him. She went, and said there were a few minutes where he seemed like he wasn’t sure what to do. He raised the gun and pointed at her face, about 5 feet between them. She turned her head and braced for the impact of the shot. Because she turned her head he did not deliver a lethal shot in her face. Instead, the bullet embedded in the back of her head, entering through the side, and although some bits of it could not be removed because of their position near her brain, she survived (well, at least until she died from cancer 9 years later).

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was in 5th grade at LaBelle Elementary School. My Aunt Debbie came to get me out of school-in the middle of lunch. She told me something bad had happened. She told me my mom had been airlifted by helicopter (nearest hospital that could treat her was about an hour away) was at the hospital, and that she had been shot.

If you know me, you know that my mom was my lifeline in my weird, emotionally detached family (with even weirder family dynamics). I had started attending Baptist Church with a friend at age 6 when we lived in Clearwater, FL, and when we moved to LaBelle, I quickly started going, alone, to Grace Baptist Church, which was a short 5-10 minute walk from our house. I needed the security and sense of belonging available to me there. I did Vacation Bible School every summer we lived there, and spent three hours every Sunday there. I got saved one Sunday (it was one of the most powerful emotional moments of my life-even now) without any (biological) family present-at the ripe old age of 8. I was baptized in water, surrounded by my new church family (but not my biological one) one Sunday. When the minister went to dunk me under he put his hand over my nose and, always the avid swimmer and control freak, I said “I can do it”, and he whispered kindly, “I’m supposed to do it!” (and winked at me). After the baptism, I was convinced my parents had to get saved…no easy feat for me to accomplish in my family, but as always, I rose to the occassion. I couldn’t stop worrying about the salvation of their souls-uncharacteristically I cried and begged and pleaded until they got saved (which they definitely did to shut me up). It didn’t occur to me that we were unusual-I never noticed how we never hugged or kissed each other, or how we never said “I Love You” in my family; my evening visits with my mom, when she tucked me in and we talked about our day and life (until I moved out at age 18), were sacred to me. They were our only tender, loving alone moments…having her in my life was what saved me-I am convinced of that.

When she was shot I was devastated. Just the year prior I had watched my beloved grandfather (my very best friend), who I spent every waking second I could with and who lived just a quick bike ride away, die of bladder cancer at home. At 11, I had seen just about enough of death and the ugliness of the world (I was also abused as a young child) to make me renounce God. And so I did-bitterness and disillusionment turned me from the church instead of drawing me into it. Never fear-that didn’t last too long-I found my spiritual heart three years later when I discovered the Tao Te Ching and the poetry of Rumi in a new age book store when we moved from LaBelle. Ever since I have found solace in eastern philosophy and eventually joined the Catholic Church, and my family and I are happy members of the amazing charitable, compassionate, and tolerant community of St. Gertrude.

So, I know from the vantage point of a child what it is to worry that a parent would die from a gunshot wound. Luckily for me she didn’t. But I don’t know, as a parent, how to reconcile the death of a child from a violent crime. I cannot stop watching the news, and weeping over the photos of those children in Newtown. I can’t stop thinking about my oldest child and that she is the exact age of those children murdered. I keep asking myself “how do you keep going when your child is lost?“ I can’t stop thinking of the mentally ill boy who did this and the mother who tried to protect him by keeping him home after a short stint in high school, who undoubtedly loved him too. The entire situation weighs on me, as it does on every person I have communicated with about it. It defines tragedy.

Our system is broken, our families fragmented. We don’t know each other anymore, except through the internet and video games where we can kill people who are so well animated they look real, without batting an eyelash. Television regularly shows violent images and glorifies the savvy and violence of criminals, and I think most people have no idea their kids are watching it, or maybe how much it affects them when they watch it. Many parents are so busy working long days and disconnected they either don’t see the warning signs or chalk up emotional distance to adolescence. And even the ones who desperately try to get help, who know their child could turn on a dime, get absolutely zero mental health support because our country’s infrastructure for mental health SUCKS.

So, what’s the answer? I’m on the wagon with banning assault rifles or semi-automatic firearms. They have absolutely no place in society. Their only purpose, as far as I can tell, are to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. This conversation is way bigger than gun laws, though. It’s about where we are going as a global community. It’s about mental illness in combination with mass isolation and the convenient, false sense of humanity that comes with our technology. I mean, we are all too bothered with the effort of making a phone call that we often defer to texting these days-even voice to voice communication is often too much effort in our packed daily existence.

These kinds of tragedies were exceedingly rare before 1982, even with looser gun laws and less protected schools-but has happened 62 times since. The status of metal health services and the stigma around mental illness seems to be generally equally as inefficient before and after this period. One site succinctly notes, “The history of mental health services in the United States is one of good intentions followed by poor execution; of promises to deliver better services for less cost; and of periodic revolutionary change with neither the evidence to support the new programs or the financial investment to see if the new approach could be effective if carried out adequately.” What has changed, though, is the infiltration of pervasive violence into American culture, and a growing detachment from our interconnected lives.

Most places don’t have a “community-raising-families” mentality anymore, where everyone is looking out for each other and the children of friends and neighbors. Mentally ill people can hide inside their homes and neglect their children, almost to death, while they play violent video games or role playing games online; or they can communicate with and get egged on by violent groups on various web sites. People, children, can learn how to make bombs, how to plan strategic assaults, and research the best assault weapons 24 hours a day-from the comfort of their own bedrooms. Then they can go watch zombies graphically get their heads cut off or bashed in with rocks and hammers or clever criminals execute mass murder or violent crimes on television, or watch slick, well-produced movies that glorify hit men, car thieves, or other criminals who murder, blow things up, get shot, and unrealistically survive to live another day. And children and innocent people are murdered every day in acts of violence...and we sit in our false coccoon of safety, and may or may not give a passing thought to "those poor people".

Somehow it locks our attention when we relate, so intimately, with a scenario like Newtown. For me, it's that I have a six year old daughter-the same age as those who perished. For others it's that they are teachers, or are married to teachers. Or maybe it's because we are parents, and the horror of this feels like it's our own nightmare played out in real life. Somehow watching the suffering of others throughout the world doesn't feel so real to us when we see it on TV, or get mailings from international humanitarian organizations asking for help. Some people find the suffering of others (on a fundamental level, like human rights, hunger, disease) much more real, like my friend Roxanne, who spent years among people who die from not getting $3 worth of medicine for simple infections. For her and her family, who lived, worked, and prayed among the suffering, the sorrows of the world are a lot more real than those of us who have never stepped outside a relatively benign middle-class american life. I had the opportunity to talk to her about the shooting, and we discussed how ugliness has a place in this world, just as beauty does. We both explained what happened to our children so we could be the ones to answer their questions and tell the story. Some places, violence, disease, hunger, and suffering are basic realities of every day. We have these problems here too, but not on the massive scale as third world countries.

Inexplicably, every time a mass shooting happens, we walk around wondering “how could this happen?” I just told you how it’s happening. So, now we can’t claim ignorance-now we are negligent, RESPONSIBLE, if we continue as we were. WE are creating this culture of violence by doing nothing, accepting these events as "the way things are now", and hoping that somehow things will get better without having to do anything to make it better. If we don’t wake up, more innocent babies, their selfless teachers, or people going about their business at malls and movie theaters will be murdered en masse by people just like this school shooter. If we don’t start trusting our gut that someone isn’t quite right and keep assuming someone else will report a person who appears unstable, or if we do report them and that person isn’t actively taken in to the mental health system for treatment-then we are responsible for what comes next.

Assault weapons should be taken out of the hands of American citizens, and a healthcare infrastructure should be created that supports mentally ill adults, children, and parents who know full well their children are capable of doing the worst we can imagine. And for those of us that fill in the spaces in between-we should turn off our computers, put our cell phones away, and pay attention to the people we are accountable to. We should know who they are-what their hopes and dreams are, what they are afraid of, who and what they love, what they are watching, writing, and doing... We should conversations-real ones-with friends and neighbors. We should know and look out for the people around us-and the kids around us. We should be aware. We should be kind, and cultivate the compassion that comes with personal relationships with others-and teach our children that. That is how they come to value individuals. To value life.