"Lovers Rock," 80's House Parties and the Fabric of Youth

 

From the moment I saw Steve McQueen's Small Axe: "Lovers Rock" film I have wanted to write something about it.  Something about how visceral and beautiful it was for me to experience, about how perfectly he encapsulated a time and place in a way that was both unique (and new for me to learn about) and at the same time as familiar to me as Home.  

I have struggled with trying to find the words to explain to anyone who doesn't share my love of that episode the WHY of its potency.  For me (and likely others) it isn't just an innovative movie about one night at a house party in the 80's in West London, or even a more sophisticated glimpse into the social experience of a Caribbean community in London at that time.  It is a movie where the music -lovers rock reggae - is a central character.  The mood throughout is sexy and dangerous and youthful and romantic and intimate.

And this starts to get at why it moved me so dramatically; this was a film that was also about my community, my experience.  It reached right into my heart and soul, my youth, and ignited the teenage me in the 80's who went to house parties in West Racine - house parties often with reggae spun by the legendary DJ Crazy D (Dave), who was also my first boyfriend.

Today marks the 6th Anniversary of Dave's death.  As I have written before,  Dave was my first adolescent love and our relationship was - like Dave - a lot.  He was an extraordinary human and together we learned about love, heartbreak, friendship and pain - lessons that are now woven into the fabric of who I am today.   The house parties he used to DJ in the 80's were filled with teenagers and 20 somethings, skaters and punks and every brand of beautiful misfit from west Racine to the north side all coming together in loud sweaty community.  People would dance and sway, burgeoning DJ's would get behind the tables with Dave to watch him spin, people would hook up, cops would show up - we were young and full of life and felt everything at a level ten volume.  

That is what is exceptional about Steve McQueen's "Lovers Rock" - what brings that film and equally exceptional Dave together in perfect loving harmony for me - it captured that moment, that FEELING, that we thought was only ours - and found a way to replicate it, share it, bring us back to it like we are experiencing it again for the first time.  And man, was it fucking delicious.   

"What happens next constitutes one of the most patient and loving celebrations of music ever captured on film. The DJ stops the music so that the slow-dancing partygoers can sing the entire song a cappella, giving it the sacred quality of a hymn. It is a spontaneous ritual of connection and endurance in a hostile world...In many ways, it was the basis for the entire film. It is about intimacy and desire and asking someone to take off their mask.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-01-13/small-axe-lovers-rock-silly-games-dennis-bovell-steve-mcqueen

Because I am a Mother to a Son, Boys Will Not "Be Boys" in My House.

Yesterday was awful. Painful.  Today I am furious.

Yesterday I spent the entire day in my office, door closed with a sign that said do not disturb. I watched, with headphones on, the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. I watched and wept.  For hours.

This historic moment was/is one of shared collective (largely gendered) pain.  The astronomical amount of women I know who are similarly situated is too numerous to imagine. The great number of friends and family members who have their own stories of sexual assault and rape, very few ever reported, are unfathomable. And the many many women I know who were also quietly glued to the testimony, also privately grieving, is so huge and multi-generational this feels like a horrific defining moment.  In our country and culture.

And while I sat there - listening to so many familiar facts about an early-teenage girl drinking (late afternoon) in a house with some boys that resulted in a sexual assault that she didn't tell anyone about for years to come - i not only thought about myself, my female family members and friends but also my son.  Yes, my son.

For as I watched this nightmare unfold and revisited my own youth, my son was at school busy being a second grader.  My happy, loving, kind-hearted, sweet son, who is also a very privileged (currently seven year-old) white boy at a private school. When I dropped him of yesterday morning I watched him on the schoolyard playing with his friends before going inside.  The group of boys were all together, several of them engaging in some physical wrestling competition while the others looked on.  The girls were talking in groups of twos and threes, not so interested in these faux-fighting schoolyard antics.  I thought of who he is now, who he could become, and what he could do.  And what I hope to hell he does not become, or do - as he walks through his life with the comfort and accommodations that his skin and sex and class automatically grant him.  The automatic entry passes that come with patriarchy and white privilege.  

As I sit here today, containing so much anger and rage (along with millions of other women across this country) about what this process has shown us about the U.S. and the status of women and sexual assault survivors and male privilege.  Misogyny.  Entitlement.  And the dismissability and disposability of women.  The only thing I can think of, the one thing I am trying to focus on - meditate on - strategize around - is how I will raise my son.  How I will raise him to be better.

I will now focus even more determinedly on how I can raise a privileged white male human who will work hard to resist the systems, structures, traditions and messaging that culture and society shove at him at every turn.  A culture that benefits from instilling in him the dangerous idea that the world is made for him, that women and girls are objects, reduced and less than, that their bodies exist for his pleasure. For his amusement. For his laughter. (If you watched the courageous and selfless testimony of Dr. Ford, you heard her say that her strongest memory of the assault was something she could not forget - "the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two [boys], and their having fun at my expense.")

 I have been on the receiving end of exactly such laughter.

I refuse to quietly allow my son to be indoctrinated into a toxic culture of masculinity. One that feeds him a sense of entitlement and impunity for how he treats others (particularly, but not only, women).

I refuse to let him blindly subscribe to false ideas of masculinity and dominance, because it is easy, convenient, spoon fed, and makes his life easier.

I refuse to let him believe that it is acceptable for women to pay the price of his male bonding and acceptance as "one of the guys."

There will be no “boys will be boys” in my house. Not in this mother's house.

Cold Water in Fiji: Life Lessons from a Grandfather

Two weeks ago, I was in Fiji working and about to start the weekend when I received a call from my dad. It was the worst kind of all calls, the ones where you instantly know that things are not okay.  My grandfather had died. 

In that moment, and the many more that followed as I stayed to finish teaching my Gender & the Law course to 45 committed law students from around the South Pacific, I was about as far away from my family and loved ones as possible. Essentially alone but for the company of my extraordinary and joyful seven year old human. 

I painfully deployed my “Life Is Beautiful” parenting strategy, doing my best not to let the grief and loneliness of my loss invade my son’s experience of Fiji. Not letting my sadness corrupt my students’ experience of my class. Working double time to hold off a flood of feelings until I would be back in the U.S. and would have the luxury of space and routine and my Brooklyn home to grieve the loss of one of the most significant people of my childhood, of my life. 

But that first weekend - as I treated us to a weekend in Pacific Harbor as part of our Fiji trip tradition - it was my son who did not allow me to ignore some of the selfless and generous contributions my grandfather made to childhood. From the first moment we arrived at our hotel, and the weather was cool and cloudy (it is, after all, winter in Fiji), my son was begging me to go into the pool with him. I was cold and sad and tired and the weather was not at all inviting, and yet... 

A foundational memory of my grandfather, because it must have been repeated more than a thousand times over the course of my childhood, was begging him to go into the pool with me and my sister. No matter how cold the water or air was, no matter if he just came home from his job at Falk Corp. and was still in a button down shirt, no matter how tired or how much he must have wanted to just relax at the end of a long day, my sister and I were there - waiting, pleading for him to come into the pool with us. 

And he always did.  

We learned to swim in that pool.  Spent summer days and nights in that above-ground pool, made whirlpools by walking in circles, played "little fishy" and did flips and handstands in that pool.  But we almost never, ever would go in alone.  It wasn't enough to be watched from outside the pool - we wanted him IN the pool with us.  (To protect us from Jaws, naturally.)  And he always went.  He always came in the pool, because it made us happy.

So there I was, in Fiji and faced with a small person who wanted nothing more than to spend time in the freezing pool with me. Shivering and smiling and shrieking with happiness. Making memories with me that will hopefully last a lifetime. And that whole weekend my grandfather was there in the dark shadows of my grieving mind, reminding me to suck it up and go in the damn water - to set aside my sadness or chill for the benefit of an oblivious child who simply deserved to be happy and have fun during his summer vacation. So I did. 

I went in the damn water. 

That weekend and the ones that followed, each time my small human asked I went into the water, without complaint, and thought of my grandfather.  I thought of all of the other things he did quietly and simply to make my sister and I happy, no matter the inconvenience, cost or discomfort to himself.  The thousands of times we pretended to be asleep in the back of the stationwagon just to have him carry us into the house in his arms.  The too-numerous-to-count times that he would answer our adolescent calls for help when we would run out of gas after curfew, and he would silently show up with a gas can to rescue us - never telling anyone or even chastising us.  It is only now, that he is gone, that I reflect on these moments and think to myself how extraordinary they were.  How much I have to learn from them.  How much they are a part of the fabric of my childhood experience.  How they are some of the best memories I have as a kid, spending time at my grandparents' in Wisconsin.

It is because of these little gifts that I look at my son just a little differently now.  How I feel and respond when he pleads to be carried, and how I would like to think his own grandfather will respond if he ever calls him to bail him out of a youthful irresponsibility at 1am.  And above all I hope, thanks to the lessons learned in my own childhood, that my son some day looks back on his childhood and is warmed with feelings and flashes of love given, in even the smallest of gestures.  All the times I said yes.  And went in the pool. 

http://www.ritchayfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites//memsol.cgi?user_id=2119092

Le tigre ne proclâme pas sa tigritude.

There are those years that you welcome saying goodbye to.  The years that decide to test you, push you, stretch you, force you to change, move, grow, learn and challenge you - whether you are ready or not.  2015 was one of those years.

The whirlwind of the past 12 months is still being sorted through in my mind.  It is a tangled rapidfire mess of "are you fucking kidding me's" and "sure, why not's."  January turned into March turned into June, September into December in the course of about four blinks of my eye. And while my mouth was steadfastly below the waterline this whole year - at least I succeeded in keeping my nose above it.  For the most part.

In our family "we can do hard things," and this year proved it. There is no benefit to recapping the numerous losses and heartbreaks sustained, stressors endured or additional responsibilities undertaken - they just are.  Or were.  That is the beauty of today.  Today marks the end of 2015: the year when everything was a bit harder, darker, heavier.  Tomorrow is 2016.

In 2016 there will be exciting opportunities to apply the lessons of the past, to embrace all the newness and to continue to live with intention knowing how much every decision matters.  

One of my great discoveries of the past couple years was the depth of power that can be summoned, harnessed and wielded quietly.  Like a secret weapon.  Power, strength, fire and yes, even authority, can be embodied and carry enormous influence without having to make a sound.  It is experienced, demonstrated, not shouted. Power like this, that I have found to be one of my greatest assets, doesn't need overt declaration or announcement. It is simply felt -- apparent.  The tiger does not proclaim it's tigritude, it just acts. 

Powerful choices and actions, ones that further that which I value most, are what is on the list for 2016. And my soul sister was pleased to hear that, among other commitments to myself, I also intend 2016 to begin with three magical action words: cleanse, purge, organize.  This will undoubtedly require time for thought and reflection, deciding what is worth holding on to and what it is best to let go. For someone with hoarding tendencies which may extend beyond the inanimate, this will not be easy.  But we can do hard things. 

So good riddance 2015. It's all an upward trajectory from here.  2016 looks so much friendlier and gentle. I'm ready. And while we CAN do hard things, here's to hoping we don't always have to.

  

  

Make These Old Bones Shiver

(1990)

It started about a year and a half ago. First it was the white eyebrow hair, then the sudden appearance of chicken-skin-neck in every photo, and then finally it was the feeling of frailty that accompanied every easily-earned bruise or unpredictable loss of balance.  

This is what aging feels like.  Before even mastering adulthood there was this rapid onslaught of declining everything. For me it began at 41.  

I can let go of the vanity of it, mostly.  There is little time for it these days anyway. I'd already become that person who used the presence of my 4 year-old as a shield from judgments for my general lack of put-togetherness.  (Though challenging are the days when I can't hide behind the stroller, and there is no obvious justification for my frenetic and unpolished veneer).  But there is something about the dramatic realization, the unexpected epiphany brought on by the bathroom mirror, that the body truly is decaying.  Things are failing.   Strength is diminishing.  Healing powers are slowing.  And yes, appearance is altering. 

It is easy, downright tempting, to feel as though all that is magical is slipping away like muscle tone.  Holding on to memory, feeling, perspective, intent becomes key.  I AM magical.  I CAN do things.  I am more than this weak arm. This gray eyebrow.  These are some of the necessary affirmations.  

The tricks of body and mind that come with growing older may be unwelcome here, but they are undeniable.  As people have heard me lament this past year, I am irrepressibly closer to being 50 than I am to 30.  That is quite a thing.  These are the surprises of life that lack originality - the embarrassing realization that the 50-something-year-old-father of the 20-something-year-old-eye-candy sees himself in your league.  And the 20-something also sees you in dad's league.  Only you, in your late-adolescent-brain-stuck-in-a-40-something-year-old-body, didn't realize this monumental shift.  When the fuck did that happen?  

The pacts made in our youth are long gone.  We've all grown up, secretly, quickly, accidentally.  We aren't young, bright, or beginning.  The kid who was cool and interesting and seemed smart as a teenager can now be found less than a mile from where he grew up, collecting disability and living vicariously through one of his several children.  The kid you thought you'd end up with ended up with someone else.  Your prom date is a GRANDPA.  And the kid who taught you lessons of bravery, self-love and suffering didn't make it at all.  He died before he could teach you anything about growing old.  

I am not saying there is no more newness.  I may still climb Kilimanjaro. That marathon I didn't train for in time for my 40th birthday, because it was in conflict with a round of IVF, may in fact become a goal for 50.  New achievements will be had, challenges faced, surprises possible.  I am far from done.  My bones may ache a little (read a lot) more than they did before, my emotions may be intensified, my recovery time lengthened (when did it happen that an hour of dancing = a day of joint pain?) but more newness is ahead.  Every day will still offer up opportunities for a life built by intention, though those opportunities may look different, older, stranger than they used to.

So there it is.  This incongruence of self.  Some days I honestly hope for not much more than to not embarrass myself.  It will take some time to acclimate to this new, older me - years, I suspect.  In the process of recalibrating, there will likely be more growing pains.  Some of them real, some of them imagined.  And every once in awhile, my body and mind will forget its years for a moment and I will be transported back to that girl who danced wildly to this song or that one back in 1990.  When an 18 year old - with only the beginning of prematurely graying hair, a smooth neck and sure-footedness - had just begun to embark on a life that defied local custom and expectation.  Ready, with the unstoppable energy and arrogance of youth to go all in.  I know her.  Balls to the wall.           

    

Explanation to the Future You.

Eiffel Tower

 Much of what makes up our life stories are accumulations of micro decisions and some bigger choices that come together in ways that only retrospect can attempt to make sense of.  But there is something remarkable in trying to shape the narrative consciously, creating opportunities and experiences that build the story - the life - that is intentional.  Intentionally extraordinary. Intentionally balls to the wall.  

I recently (and intentionally) participated in a process that provided the space for contemplating how to invent a future tale of my own design and help with developing the infrastructure for the life that I envision. Creating the scaffolding to bring my daydreams into the real world.  This is what underlies my nearly every decision.  Unapologetically.  

Kyrgyzstan

This focus is amplified as my son gets older and I become keenly aware of the impact and implications each of my decisions can have on him and the stories that will become part of the personal narrative of his childhood.  

  Where to live (Brooklyn).

  What school he will attend (the International School, so he will be in total Spanish immersion).

 What work trips to take him on (summer in Fiji again?).

 How he should be introduced to the concept of death (by gently and safely being part of saying goodbye to our beloved family pet, and having his first lesson on the permanency of death, what grief looks like and what my beliefs are around what happens when something dies).

The list of decisions that will inevitably become part of the landscape of his early experiences is endless.  Consequently, the notion of intentionality has never been more important to me.

   

Croatia

Of course there are innumerable factors to weigh into these micro and more pivotal decisions, including more traditional notions of stability, predictability, family and community.  But the imperfect calculus that I feel compelled to engage in incorporates these and other necessities into the complex cost-benefit analysis, and the one thing that seems to ultimately help with casting the deciding vote is the question:

What will this contribute to your/our life stories? 

Or rather, would this _______ bring something to our lives to make it even more positive, more beautiful, more amazing, more unique and more meaningful?  Will this _____ help further me/you/us on a path to being the people we want to become, living the lives we want to have lived?

   

Fiji

  

The answer, in my mind, should almost always be yes.  

This is an admittedly difficult endeavor, that runs the risk of making every moment heavy with inflated and disproportionate importance.  It can also create opportunities for judgmental reactions, misunderstandings, allegations of selfishness and potential alienation.   

It is rarer than it should be that people live the lives they truly desire.

As I imagine the future version of my son, and the conscious and subconscious narrative of his life that I was a contributor to, this is my explanation to him.  I did it on purpose.  This was all intentional.  For better or worse, these were choices.  Things did not just happen TO us in our lives, but instead decisions were made on how we interacted with that which was within our power to control and that which was out of our control.  Each moment was a choice.  Sometimes more carefully than others.  Sometimes more thoughtfully or well-informed than others.  Sometimes more patiently than others.  Sometimes incorrectly.  But almost always with absolute intention.

Goodbye Kitten 

April 1996 - April 2014

Lest some of you think this is crazy, perhaps aggrandizing, neurotic, or selfish (it may be all those things), it is also part of living a mindful life that is unquestionably balls to the wall.  

Making each moment matter.  

Because it does.  

It really does. 

Sisterhood Dedication

Madison Marathon 2013

I remember so vividly where I was on this date, four years ago - the day I got the news that my best friend's younger sister had died.  It was a tragedy that hit me with unparalleled sadness.

For nearly twenty years my friendship with Alyson existed on a level one may only associate with something like a soul.  And four years ago today her younger sister - whom she was as close to as I was to mine, who was the exact same age as mine, who had just recently gotten married like mine - was suddenly and senselessly taken from her.  There were no words to express what I felt for her and her wondrous family whom I loved so much.  When I reached her in Costa Rica through Skype from my distant room in Kabul, moments after she had heard the news, I asked her what I could do - she immediately answered with one request laced with the kind of profundity that sometimes accompanies moments like this.  She asked me to call my sister and tell her I love her.  So that's exactly what I did, sobbing, imagining her loss and taking great care to appreciate the gift of sisterhood as I told my sister what had happened.

A few months later, when I was pregnant with my son, my sister ran her first half-marathon in honor of the inspiring life of Errin Vuley.  It was something she decided independently to do, to honor the exceptional woman Errin was - her thoughtfulness and commitment not just moving but admirable.  As part of her debut as a runner, she raised over $1000 to donate in Errin's name to an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to girls' empowerment, self-esteem and health.  I could not have been more proud of my own sister that day, in her first of what became a series of incredible personal achievements.  She ran that half marathon for Errin, and then another and another, eventually running the full New York marathon, the Philadelphia marathon and this past Sunday she ran the Madison Marathon.   She once told me that in every long run there is a moment when her mind gravitates toward thoughts of Errin, and it helps propel her forward, keep running.  

Four years ago the world lost an exceptional woman, a sister.  Seven days ago I had the honor of watching my own exceptional sister continue her journey as a marathoner, a journey partly inspired by the late Errin Vuley.  It was as moving and admirable as her first race, watching her challenge herself, show her strength and determination - and reminding me and everyone who knows her just what a strong and amazing woman she is.  So today, on this unthinkable anniversary, I cannot help but be thankful.  Thankful for the opportunity to be able to continue to call my sister every day, watch her achieve new heights, and careful not to take her presence in the world for granted.  

Today, remembering that painful conversation and Alyson's tearful plea to me, I am reminded of the bonds of sisterhood, familial and beyond.  The best way I can honor Alyson's sister is to honor mine.  I love you Sisterina Angela.  Congratulations on the Madison Marathon!  I am so proud of you and so fortunate to have you in my life.  

A Mother of a Day

November 2010

I am a mom.  I am "MAMA!"  I am the mother of Luka Alejandro Valentino.  I have been a mother for exactly 910 days.  And it has changed me.

I know now that my tolerance for some things (like people being mean) is lower. I notice that I cry way too easily these days, particularly if there is a storyline fact or fiction involving a young boy.  I find that I am less concerned with certain professional achievements and focused more on getting to spend time at home playing.  I feel bursting joy, absolute terror, tiny heartbreaks, overwhelming pride and a thousand other colors every single day.  I worry about the many dangers (to small people with limited verbal skills) present in regular life encounters and environments.  I am willing to endure repeated physical discomfort in order for my son's sheer pleasure - in particular sitting on my shoulders for prolonged walks to preschool.  I now spend money on things I never would have dreamed of, including dozens of trains, fish sticks, numerous books about pooping on the potty.  I focus on things like school options, developmental milestones, immunizations, babysitter schedules, sticker charts, and making sure  there are about a thousand toddler giggles produced a day.  I am distracted by online shopping, and not for myself.  I am cautious about strangers and traffic and ocean waves and hot stoves and uncut grapes. I am thrilled at new concepts grasped, new sentences constructed, revelations coming to light and I carefully document them in journals and social media channels, while I watch my own IQ to continue to dwindle in direct proportion.  I allow a certain level of animal abuse to take place in my own home (because it seems my cats' tolerance for some things - like small people being accidentally mean - is actually getting higher). I am certain of the fact that there are truly not enough hours in the day. I am frustrated by the observation that (despite being one hell of a multi-tasker) I simply can not be good at all things at the same time.  I am (more and more) accepting of real limitations on my ability to "have it all," at least simultaneously. I am hypersensitive to the messages we are sending to kids (especially young boys), and hyper aware of the choices I make and their potential impact.  I am desperately holding on to the feeling of each small-voiced "I love you," and the memory of each made up toddler song ("the itsy bitsy poopy went up the poopy spout"), and each fantastic miscommunication  ("Would you like meatballs in your soup?" "No, I put my balls in the soup but it was too hot.").

And I feel a love on a visceral level that is inexplicable, indescribable, unimaginable, terrifying, and fulfilling in a way that can make me cry just reflecting on its depths.

I have been a mother for 910 days. Each day more mind-blowing, hilarious, and filled with love than the last. It sounds impossible but true. This Mother's Day, if I were to have a moment of quiet solitude to think about what this means to me, how I feel, how my life has changed, and who this small person is becoming, I might just spend the whole day weeping with joy.  So instead I am going to brunch.

Reflections on Hunger and Satisfaction

I've been thinking a lot recently about the concepts of desire and satisfaction, happiness and contentment, chaos and calm and the complexities that make us these unique creatures, capable of crafting our own individual paths.  The decisions we make and the right or left turns we take come together to leave a trail [largely] of our own making - and I've been curious about the differences in how we make those choices.

When I think of myself and the possibilities over a lifetime - the arcs of joy and sadness, of heart and mind - the branches of this tree span so wide I can't see where they could possibly end. Any one of them could lead to a path that may soar in a thousand different directions. To unimaginable heights or (and?) unfathomable lows.

At the same time, I see a certain impermanence in most things and feel that very few decisions are unchangeable or irreversible.  It is why I am not afraid to change jobs or move between countries and coasts and how I generally choose action over inaction in many cases.  Don't like (or absolutely love) something? Do something about it. This trait that has so often served as a strength for me can also be a flaw, and my challenge lies in understanding when to follow my hunger and when to be satisfied, when to seek more and embrace the unknown and when to quietly enjoy to what is I already have (a job that is less than rewarding in substance but provides extraordinary flexibility for my personal life, for example).

Some people have this amazing ability (I tend to think of it as something innate - programmed into their DNA) that allows them to commit to a life course and follow it steadfastly.  These incredible people see things through to the end - that job they've already invested a decade in but may no longer enjoy or that relationship that was so full of love but has since lost its passion - somehow they have a long-term vision and in that vision a plan that allows them to see the end game, which is worth all the trouble.  They are satisfied knowing they will collect a strong pension at retirement or have a partner when they are aging, but they also have a wisdom about the peaks and valleys that riddle almost everything - and it is in those valleys that they don't give up.  These marvels of follow-through and dedication have my admiration, and I spend a lot of time asking friends how they do it, where they get the fortitude, and what does that kind of commitment require.

At the far ends of a nonlinear spectrum of good needs or bad wants there are people who act on mad impulse, on the creepiest of desires.  This past week the news revealed monstrous acts by real people (again) and distracted me with images of those who hunger for things that are hurtful, dangerous, and destructive - operating at levels that are outside the realm of any version of okay and without regard for the consequences to others.  These people are perhaps also programmed this way through some frankenstein-like combination of nature and nurture, to do damage in ways that even they may not understand in their quest to feel some sort of twisted personalized version of satisfaction.

Putting aside these gruesome anomalies, I find myself back at the unanswerable question of how it is that we choose one path over another, and how we know what path is right - when to follow our hunger and when to stay put and take stock of the bigger picture.  And the mystery of how some people are better at decisive action and others are better at follow through.  Not understanding any of this, I do know one thing - our decisions matter, our choices matter from the smallest decision to the grandest (as sometimes the distinction isn't clear until after the fact - a lesson learned thanks to the shining example of heroic bystander Charles Ramsey).

And sometimes turning left and satisfying a hunger will lead to great happiness and new adventures.  Sometimes it won't.  Sometimes turning right and letting hunger pass in favor of satisfaction of a different kind will lead to great happiness.  And sometimes it won't.  And the kicker is, we don't get to know the answers until after the fact...until that branch of the tree has led to another branch and perhaps another branch and we look down at where we started to see how far we've come.  Or look up in yet another direction and just enjoy the view.

  

My Sister is a Marathoner

My sister Angela is a marathoner.  I say that because she has already done two marathons and countless half-marathons; she is seriously running all of the time. It is part of her life, part of who she is these days.

So it was wholly appropriate that I was with her yesterday when we saw the news about the tragic events at the Boston Marathon - as my organization had a team running in it and my sister nearly did the run for us herself.  Striking close to home was the fact that merely the day before the Boston Marathon, I was on the sidelines of the More/Fitness Magazine Women's Half-Marathon in Central Park - cheering her on with 2 year old Luka on my shoulders.

My sister is a Marathoner.  And I am a spectator, a cheerleader, a supporter, and proud family member.  From the sidelines of her first marathon, and every race since, I am moved to tears by the incredible strength and determination of these runners -  of my sister.  I often stand there in complete awe and amazement at her drive and dedication, and as tears stream down my face I think to myself - that's MY SISTER doing that.  Look at her! She is AMAZING! What an inspiration! Go! You are doing it! I love you!

Yesterday, John was standing near the finish line at the Boston Marathon to cheer on his daughter-in-law Sara Carr, who was running as part of Team ALLY.  I can easily imagine the extraordinary pride he felt and the surge of emotions in seeing this incredible accomplishment in-person, as I feel every time I watch my sister run - it is overwhelming.  He was on the sidelines, a spectator, a cheerleader, a supporter, a proud family member - and moments later he was sharing an ambulance with an 8 year old boy who did not make it.  John himself is currently in extremely critical condition.  It is unimaginable.

My sister is a Marathoner.  And while she may think I go to her races solely for her, what us spectators know - us cheerleaders and avid supporters and family members along the sidelines - is that we gain so much by being there.  The honor of being a small part of something incredible, the overflowing pride in being associated with someone so strong and amazing, the collateral glow we get from someone we love accomplishing something so meaningful, the inspiration in watching the hard work come to fruition and hearing the stories of the journey to greatness.  Because that is what we are witnessing, at these moments, with these people, greatness.

Events like what happened yesterday at the Boston Marathon remind us to hold our loved ones close.  Like a scene from "Sliding Doors," we all have stories about parallel universes - who could have been where when it happened and who narrowly escaped due to wild circumstances or luck or whatever you may believe.

Our hearts are breaking for those injured in Boston, and the runners they were there to support.  We are them and they are us.  But it also makes me think of acts of extraordinary courage, strength, determination and just absolute awesomeness... of those incredible runners, of the people who crossed the finish line after suffering 26.2 miles, of the cowboy-hat peace activist who acted like a true hero and jumped into action to help stop the bleeding of man who was seriously injured, and all of those who ran toward the injured.  I have to believe this is also what it means to live balls to the wall - to live life as if it matters, as if every person matters, every decision matters, and every mile.

My sister is a Marathoner. And I am so honored to be a spectator to her greatness, a cheerleader for her awesomeness, a supporter for her balls to the wall endeavors, and proud family member at every finish line. Even the invisible ones. 

Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

There is a point a person's stress level when they can take no more.  Everyone deals with that point differently, and to complicate matters that threshold varies from person to person as well as from time to time within an individual's life.  How we deal with stress is a complex bit of magic that takes its influences from chemistry and hormones and all sorts of physiological balances along with a lifetime of lessons and examples that began at day one with our caretakers.

As a mom, I hope to teach my son my to handle stress with a smooth grace and a calm demeanor.  I want him to have the ability to manage a superhuman amount of pressure and still be cool and miraculously relaxed.  And I want him to be able to recognize when the stress and pressure he feels is just too much, and that he needs to ask for help.

This is something I am not good at, and that I fail in my parenting and being an example for him.  I do not have the ability to ask for help, I do not have a superhuman ability to handle pressure and the weight of a million tasks and responsibilities and remain collected and cool and un-phased.

What I do have, for better or worse, is a deceptive ability to APPEAR as though I can handle it. Until I can't.  These last few months have been heavy with stress, anxiety, pain, pressure, intensity and disappointment.  And given who I am, the time of year, the challenge of my circumstances, and a host of other excuses - I was unable to ask for or receive help to get out from under it all.  Instead I tried desperately to juggle, balance, manage, and maintain (often failing) - barely keeping my nose above the rising tidewater.  At times it poked through, at times the meltdown appeared imminent, and often I felt like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  (A much darker less entertaining version of a farcical Almodovar movie).

What I do know, what I can pass along, is a small bit of self awareness, that in these moments of unbelievable pressure and stress and turmoil - what often suffers and takes the lion's share of neglect is ourselves. The things that make us healthy and happy. They are the first to be ignored in place of the thousands of noisier moving parts requiring more attention.  And this is a mistake.

Allowing for a certain amount of madness and meltdowns and insanity is one thing.  It may even be unavoidable, given a balls to the wall sort of lifestyle (which can make one prone to those sorts of things).  But letting it go on forever without taking care of one's self is inexcusable.   its an indulgence that is supremely annoying and gets in the way of truly living.

So bring on the new year.  Bring on 2013.  And say goodbye to last year's stress and madness and pressure and upheaval and uncertainty.  In its place, make self-care and attention and health and happiness a certainty -  worthy of the time and attention it requires.  No one wants to repeat history, and last year only needs to happen once.  Deep breaths.

Sometimes Things Suck

When thinking about things I want my son to know, among the many life lessons that seem relevant to me in the moments I put my thoughts into words, I want to acknowledge the fact that sometimes things just suck.  This may seem silly or beyond obvious for most of us who have been around awhile.  But for my little man-in-training, who seems to love life from his first breath and is full of so much laughter and joy, I have to tell you this hard truth - sometimes things suck.

Sometimes life is messy.  Sometimes it is ugly, and sad, and frustrating - or full on just sucks ass.  It is true, and if you don't know this it will be a shock to your light-filled system.

But here is what else is true.  Even when it sucks and seems to be dark and gloomy and full of despair, I want you to know something else very important - it will get better.  It will always get better.  No matter how long the dark days last, whether it be one day or one week or one year, eventually the clouds will clear and miraculously everything will get better.  I promise you.  You need to remember this because, in the thick of it, this can be hard to believe.  But your mom and her 40 years (gasp!) of experience is here to tell you - now and over and over again whenever you need to hear it - that no matter how sucky things get they WILL get better. I know this. I live this.

As your mom I don't want you to feel heartbreak, pain, or loss.  If I had my way, your days would always be filled with nothing but happiness and good things.  But if my life has taught me anything, it is that this is not the way the world works.  Bad things happen, even to good people, and sometimes things just suck.  So that is why I want you to always keep in mind the more important life lesson here, which is that if you are patient, and let time pass, and continue to get up each day and do your best in all that you do and be the best person you can be, things will get better. They just will. How? I don't know, its part of the magic of life.  It might take a day or a week or a month, but things will get better.

In the suckiest of times, the future is bright for you my love. As it is for all of us, if we have the will and the strength to wait for it.  So when things suck for you, as they inevitably and annoyingly will some day, know that it is not forever.  Know that it will get better. Know that eventually it will pass.  Know that while sometimes things suck, they always always always will look up.  Eventually.

On Being 40

Last Day in My Thirties

Here is the thing - I never imagined myself at 40.  This could be due to several reasons, one of which is the depressing thought I had when younger that  - for no specific reason - I wasn't really sure I would live to be 40.  Another reason is that I just never imagined what I would be like when I got older.  Old.  And now that it is happening, and the number no longer permits denying it, I don't really like it.  I am not embracing it, as my healthier and perhaps more content self-assured friends are.

No matter which way you slice it, 40 sounds old when you are younger.  As a kid it sounds ancient (I mean my grandma BECAME a grandma at 34 years old so....).  And as a young adult it seems like forever from there.  And as an actual adult in your twenties and thirties it somehow still sounds like it will happen to someone else.  At least to me it did.  But here it is, happening to me - turning 40.

I am supposed to be wiser now.  But all I really know about being older is that it happens so fast.  One minute you are in high school and having those moments that will be burned into your memory forever about life, friendships and love.  The next you are in college and playing at being an adult and feeling so confident and brilliant that you will take over the world.  Then you are actually living as an adult with challenges and responsibilities for decision-making on real life issues like employment and relationships and housing.  And all through the decades, these decades that truly move by like fleeting moments, it feels as though at some point you will have it all figured out.  But the only thing you know for sure is that time is speeding up.  And before you know it you are that 17 year old, that 22 year old, that 30 year old, trapped in a body that is now 40.  Its confusing really.  Like waking up after a brief ride in a time machine.

So as I enter this new decade, I might actually be wiser, more mature, experienced, and certain skills like patience and thoughtfulness may have grown.  But also inside of me, in many way, I am still the same person I was 25 years ago.  The voice I hear in my head has not changed, in fact it sounds exactly the same - it has not grown older as my hair has grayed.

Being closer to 50 than I am to 20 makes no damn sense to me - and no matter how I try I have not yet been able to reconcile this in the inner monologue of my daily reflections, wants, and intentions.  Maybe I never will.  And it has nothing to do with a sense of achievement or success - I am so deeply satisfied with having lived in the present and gone balls to the wall in all that I have put my mind to.  I have a wonderful life that I am so incredibly thankful and proud for - not the least of which is my beautiful and joyful amazing son.  It is simply that despite all that my life has given me, I will never be young again.  I will never experience youth again, be considered young, or grouped in with that ridiculously optimistic, arrogant and un-jaded category of 20-somethings.  I will never again have my whole life ahead of me like an almost-blank slate.  Instead I will be called "Ma'am," I will be the "old" mom at my son's playground, and I will feel like Mrs. Robinson when I notice a super hot 20-year old.  And most of all I will have to be intentional in all that is ahead of me - knowing that 50 is right around the corner - and with the speed that time moves now I shouldn't waste a second of it.

30 Days Until 40

i have 30 days until i turn 40 years old.  this is no small event.  as someone who likes to think i have a long and interesting (dare i say exciting) life ahead of her, turning 40 presents some existential crises that are hard to put into words.

feeling old.
feeling unremarkable, invisible.
being called ma'am by boys i would once have consider hot.
watching my body and face change rapidly, and feeling the ever intensifying pull towards old age.
looking around and ahead and finding there is so much still to be done, to be accomplished.
looking back and finding that, despite my best efforts, there were missed opportunities and decisions that could have been better.
remembering moments that are long gone, and wishing i could visit them again.
grasping at memories, people, songs and feelings that remind me of my younger self.
wanting things that seem somehow harder or further from reach for someone soon to be entering their 40's.

i know a lot more about myself now.  i also see clearly the areas where i could be better.  it is obvious to me the many ways i would like to improve, change and grow as a person.  and with time speeding up it all becomes very intensified and serious for some reason.

initially i thought i should take on a challenge of doing one new thing for myself in the next 30 days - to mark the milestone of 40 more poignantly.  maybe things on my life's growing to-do list that would make me feel accomplished. but then i realized that there are enough challenges each day, that being the mother i want to be,  making progress in my professional life (slow but sure progress), and trying to live a life that is happy and interesting and balls to the wall on a daily basis (particularly this month!) doesn't leave a lot of room for an additional 30 day challenge.  so for now i will look at this countdown with wide eyes and hope that something awesome and delightful hits me over the head on september 29th.

Sacrifice and Love

I was ruminating on the nature of parenting, and the challenges i face as an individual with deep and dramatic desires for adventure and meaningful contributions and travel and impactful work.  and i started to think that the word that best describes how i was feeling these past few months is SACRIFICE.

Sacrifice - an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.

as a mother, i find that there are many things that i am choosing to sacrifice for the sake of something else more important - my son.  not surprisingly, i sacrifice some of the work that i value...i forgo certain projects and work less on things i care about in order to spend more time with him.  i sacrifice some of the things that i love, such as sleep and extensive travel, in order to be there for him.  i sacrifice time with my friends in order to put him to bed each night, and i sacrifice time getting ready in the morning (and as a consequence often sacrifice feeling good about how i look) in order to be sure to give him the attention he wants.  i sacrifice what i want to do a million little moments through out the day, because i happily give them all up for the sake of him.

its not something i need him to thank me for later on.  its something that is natural to me, and seems inherent in the position. its something that i can't imagine not doing, as he is always (and always will be) regarded as more important or worthy than just about anything.

i know the importance of being happy - and that a happy parent makes for happy children. believe me, i indulge my dreams and interests often.  i am not a martyr.  but i do see how critical and intrinsic the notion of sacrifice is to being the kind of parent i want to be. and its important to acknowledge how hard that can be sometimes.  its not that the rest of me shriveled away and died when my son was born and i no longer have the outlandish intentions and impulsive desires to act...those are all still there (sometimes straining to be unleashed).  it is rather that i, most oftentimes, choose to sacrifice my selfish impulses for something of much greater value.  and i am confident that not only am i happier for it, and he is better for it, but also that these pieces of me will be still be there when the time is right and selfishness over sacrifice makes sense again.  

Screw the Lemonade

So there is this saying, that may or may not still be around when my son is old enough to finally read this, which goes like this - If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Well I don't feel that way.  I never have.  I am more of the mind that if life gives you lemons then tell life to fuck off and kick its ass.

I have a low tolerance for wallowing.  This is true in how I view myself and at times even others.  I don't know what it is.  Its not that I lack empathy, I like to consider myself super empathetic and compassionate to others.  Its more that I don't have an enormous amount of patience, particularly for myself.  I know that time speeds up and life is shorter than we all think it is -  I don't have the tolerance for too much self-pity for my own disappointments and raw deals.

What I do have, when life doesn't deliver, is a fire to do something.  Perhaps it is an unhealthy desire to move on, a little too rapidly (I have noticed this on more than one occasion, that I didn't allow myself the time to mourn a loss or feel the sadness).  Nonetheless, when life screws you I say screw the lemonade.  Instead go out and find something else to do, something else to feel good about, something else to pin your hopes on, something else happy to focus on, somewhere else to go.  There is an infinite number of possible directions in life, and so my balls to the wall philosophy doesn't allow much time for stewing in sadness - it requires me to go out and kick life's ass by doing something exciting and wonderful.

This something exciting and wonderful for me is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro this fall.  Take THAT life.

The Dangers of the Back Up Plan

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate disappointment.  I deplore it.  Generally speaking nearly any kind of disappointment, no matter how great or small, for me results in crushing heartbreak.   One of the ways I have adapted to this disproportionate emotional reaction is to always have a back up plan.

Back up plans have worked wonders in my life - providing meaningful alternatives to plans and hopes in the event that those endeavors don't pan out.  A perfect antidote to the high risk of disappointment, particularly in a balls to the wall existence.  And it keeps my life moving forward, always changing and progressing, with many wonderful twists and turns.  So what if that job I went for didn't come through for me, there is always an offer equally interesting waiting as Plan B.  So what if returning to New York isn't in the cards, L.A. is equally fun and something different.  Who cares if this project or that desire doesn't materialize, so long as there is some beautiful secondary option percolating in the wings.

But there is a downside to the business of the back up plan.  As I get older I come to terms with the fact that sometimes a back up plan provides an escape, an excuse to move on to Plan B before Plan A disappoints.  A cowardly alternative to putting all your eggs in one basket.

And more important than that, there is the issue of the power of putting things out into the universe  - visualizing something positive to help make it come true.  If you have ever listened to guided meditation tracks or anything goal-oriented in nature, they never say visualize what you want...and also visualize a Plan B in case what you want doesn't work out.  Nope.  They focus exclusively on visualizing your goal, attaining your goal, achieving what you want, and seeing in your "mind's eye" what you want to see reflected in reality.

So what of the power of positive visualization?  Certainly one can't focus on making one's true desires and wishes come true if one is also planning for possible failure and disappointment.  These are not mutually compatible actions.   The latter will always take away from the former.

While I remain skeptical about my own power to will things to happen, these days I am recognizing the possible benefits to focusing on one outcome at a time and the drawbacks of entertaining back up plans.    Though I still believe there are huge benefits to having options and staving off disappointment, when the stakes are right.  I also am open to entertaining the possibility that I may contain within me the power to make the things I want most materialize, by harnessing the focus of my balls to the wall attitude and effort.

We will see how that works out for me.  To be continued....

When We Get Older

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
Jim Carroll - People Who Died

When we get older sometimes we can't help but look around us, and look back.  The allure of sentimentality and nostalgia are so great that in dark times, quiet times, monumental times, harrowing times, and lonely times we think of our former selves, and the people we knew.  Approaching 40 it seems natural to want to take a loose inventory of my life.

It strikes me that so many people I knew have died.  

I have a running mental list of them that I occasionally revisit to wonder about our merging and diverging paths - old friends, more than one former lover, sisters of my most important people, relatives, acquaintances.  All dead before I turn 40.  It is disturbing and baffling, and so senseless, to know this many people gone before their own 40th birthdays.


And then there are those who haven't died but our paths took opposite turns due to other reasons - homelessness, alcoholism, addiction... It is nearly impossible to determine which set of small (and big) decisions widened the gap between those friends and me.  But as we get older it becomes curious.  

Continuing to look around at those who are still in our lives in some way evokes deep emotions that seem only possible with history and the flattering benefit of time and distance.  It is visceral and crushing - that feeling when your high school sweetheart gets married and has kids with someone else.  Amusing when you find out that your prom date has five kids or that your junior high crush looks even better at 40 than he did in 1988.  Inspiring when your clean-cut friend-turned-heroin-addict-turned-felon-turned-clean-again becomes a responsible and loving father to his son.  Fascinating when your college boyfriend comes out with a book, your law school boyfriend evolves into a successful attorney with a remarkable wife and the best friend you traveled Europe with turns out to live just half a mile from you.  These discoveries are magical.

Without judging, knowing how the people we knew and loved and shared pivotal times with have turned out is part of looking back.  And looking around. Reflecting.  It is like another road map of how we got where we are, where we took a different turn, and where we might have gone, had things.... It puts our own lives in context while also showing the uniqueness of our own paths.  And, when the sentimentality passes and the losses fade again to the backdrop, I emerge back in the present and can't help but feel extraordinarily fortunate to be at the very spot I am right now.  And soon to be 40.

In the Company of Great Women

I am lucky.  I am surrounded by inspiring women of extraordinary talents and strength.  This Mother's Day I am thinking of women, mothers and non-mothers alike, who provide amazing examples of what is possible  - possible to do, to be, to become, to accomplish.  So many women who somehow find a way to make the impossible seem almost effortless and who show me the infinite levels of living (balls to the wall) ... as a woman.

From the women I know who somehow manage to raise smart and happy kids on no money whatsoever, without them ever feeling deprived in some way.  To the women who are changing the world with each day that they dedicate themselves to service and global development.  The women who are miraculously balancing their personal and professional selves, with or without kids, and contributing to the external world as well as their intimate personal worlds.  Women in school while working and raising kids, women raising kids in countries foreign to them and teaching their children to explore and appreciate the world and other cultures, women raising kids with their wives who have to endure ridiculous legal obstacles to fair and just treatment, women pioneers leading huge teams (of mostly men) in places like Afghanistan and Libya, women in shelters (often with kids) paying a high price to live a life free from violence, women raising smart and thoughtful human beings while juggling a thousand other relationships and obligations and demands, women following their dreams while simultaneously taking care of their babies or other people's babies, women who run marathons and break physical barriers, and women who bravely do what is right even when it is the hardest option.

This Mother's Day I am celebrating all women.  As a mother for less than two years now, I feel so fortunate to have so many examples of how to live; to have so many people to look to in order to remind myself of what can be.  It is easy to find motherhood full of challenges and daily heartbreaks - particularly when also trying to maintain a sense of self and contribute to the world in a positive way.  These truly great women (including my own mother) are important reminders to me of the incredible, unimaginable and outrageous world of possibilities that is open to me (to all of us) if I just fearlessly stay committed to living life balls to the wall.

And as I do that, as I stumble forward somewhat blindly but well-intentioned into all sorts of adventures and endeavors and travels and professional milestones, I know that I am being the best mother I can be.  One that continues to set the example for my own son of a live truly worth living.  One that is balls to the wall.