To Evan, On Your 4th Birthday

My sweet boy,

As I write this, you are falling asleep in your brand new bunk bed, with the Beatles playing softly through your stereo.  Your class at Abeona House has spent the summer studying the Fab Four, and true to form you have become a connoisseur.  Your favorite tunes are 'Help' and 'Eleanor Rigby,' and we've had many discussions over the last few weeks about the meaning behind the lyrics--you really seem to connect with "all the lonely people." Where do they come from, Mama? Why are all the people lonely? How do people get lonely and how can we help them?

Needless to say, you're a heartbreaker.

You've grown so much in the last year, but you're still the same loving, empathic, powerful, funny, and observant little boy.  J. is still your best friend; you still love Legos.  You're still endlessly affectionate and exquisitely sensitive, and rambunctious and wild and talkative and bossy. You are perfectly happy to play alone, creating elaborate "bad guy" scenarios with your Legos or drawing or looking at books, but you also love your friends and family and talk about them constantly.  There is a quiet, commanding wisdom that surrounds you (maybe it's the Force?) and coupled with your tiny stature, it gives people pause.  People often ask how old you are; they can't quite believe that such a powerful person could exist in such a small body.

You are precocious.  The other day, I came home from a run and you followed me into the bathroom while I washed my face.  Positioning yourself on the stool next to the sink, you rested your chin on your hand and said, "So. How's your running going?"

You are super affectionate.  You have this thing where you like to squeeze "lovings" into other people and at any given time you apparently have "4 and 5" lovings in your body.  A few weeks ago I asked you for a hug and you said, "I can do that, Mama.  I have a lot of lovings in my body."

Your nickname at school and home is "Red Sprite." This came about when you watched your sister and her soccer pals order their team drinks after games; you were fascinated by the various sodas and one week at school, when you all had the opportunity to identify your fairy/spirit names, you chose Red Sprite.  And it suits you perfectly: you are all impish fire.  This spirit, coupled with your natural empathy and compassion, is so incredibly compelling--you're a force of nature.

You've started to talk about what you want to be when you grow up.  Right now it's a tie between astronaut and baseball player.  Although you've never attempted either endeavor, it's thrilling to watch you consider your future, and your identity.  You're also interested in ballet, which makes me excited, but I know not to push you too much--you have a natural tendency to balk against expectations.

Oh, but you do love to dance.  Whenever Sydney plays that Katy Perry song you drop whatever you're doing and shake your money maker; I apologize in advance for the humiliation that I will be unable to refrain from showering upon you in your young adulthood.

This year you will play soccer, and practice writing your letters, and learn about the Solar System (you and Syd have plans to make one from scratch), and visit your cousins in Florida, and draw ninjas, and get ready for big kid school.  You'll grow out of your clothes and stop using your binky.  You'll fight with Sydney, testing your burgeoning identity against her solid strength.  You'll help me make banana nut muffins--your favorite snack--and before we know it, you'll be 5.

Tonight, over your birthday dinner, we had a long talk about the 'Neverending Story.' You had a lot of questions about The Nothing, and the Swamp of Sadness, and the bullies who hound Sebastian.  You are amazingly perceptive: you wanted to know why the horse sinks in the swamp, while Atreyu survives. You identify with those characters--Atreyu and Sebastian, who are one in the same--because they share your beautiful mix of strength and vulnerability.  We talked about the threat of sadness and the power of imagination and beauty, and you seemed to accept it, to hold those things together.  I hope that you always feel comfortable bringing these questions to me.

Evie, I love you.  So many people love you.  I've learned enough about life to know that sometimes the weight of other peoples' love and expectations can be so burdensome, but I hope that when you read this some day in the distant future you will know that our love comes without expectations or burdens; that we just want you to build a life for yourself that is beautiful, and full, and true, and creative.  Like the Lego sets you own: each comes with a set of instructions, which we dutifully adhere to, only to end up with a jumble of parts that we (you) joyfully retreat to each morning, assembling pieces into new and amazing configurations--an endless source of re-creation.

Happy Birthday, my beautiful boy.  We look forward to all of your creations.

Love,

Mommy

Don't Tell Anyone

We had been married for six or seven years
when my wife, standing in the kitchen one afternoon, told me
that she screams underwater when she swims--

that, in fact, she has been screaming for years
into the blue chlorinated water of the community pool
where she does laps every other day.

Buttering her toast, not as if she had been
concealing anything,
not as if I should consider myself

personally the cause of her screaming,
nor as if we should perform an act of therapy
right that minute on the kitchen table,

--casually, she told me,
and I could see her turn her square face up
to take a gulp of oxygen,

then down again into the cold wet mask of the unconscious,
For all I know, maybe everyone is screaming
as they go through life, silently,

politely keeping the big secret
that it is not all fun
to be ripped by the crooked beak

of something called psychology,
to be dipped down
again and again into time;

that the truest, most intimate
pleasure you can sometimes find
is the wet kiss

of your own pain.
There goes Kath, at one PM, to swim her twenty-two laps
back and forth in the community pool;

--what discipline she has!
Twenty-two laps like twenty-two pages,
that will never be read by anyone.

(Tony Hoagland, 2012)

New York, New York

The Boston Marathon is the holy grail of most distance runners: it's difficult to gain entry, and the course is challenging and competitive.  If you're the proverbial Type A runner (no walking, no chatting, no "good enough" races), once you start doing marathons you set your sights on a BQ.  In recent years they've lowered the qualifying times, making it even more difficult to gain even a chance at entry, which only fuels the fire for people like me.  You're gonna make it harder?  I'll see your qualifying time and raise you 20 miles per week.

But the New York City marathon has always held the most allure.  The crowds, the scenery, the intoxicating spectacle, the idea of running through the 5 boroughs in late Fall...it's almost too much to bear.  Every year, I read about the elites who will be competing, and I watch the live coverage with an odd mixture of boredom and rapture (not unlike the experience of actually running a marathon).  Sometimes, in the wee hours of my training runs, when the only sound I hear is my own breath, my own footfalls, I entertain myself with fantasies of running NYC: boarding the ferry to Staten Island just before dawn, shivering in my second-hand sweater (which I would discard in the second mile), compulsively checking my bag for adequate Gu and pre-race banana and bagel, standing with the 45,000 other runners at the start, trying not to work off too much nervous energy.  Running through Brooklyn, scanning the crowds for my friends' faces; finishing, triumphantly, arms raised overhead, in Central Park; celebrating with old friends for the rest of that day in the city I love almost as much as my hometown.  It's an almost painful fantasy--one of those that hurts too much to think about never realizing.

Last year, I entered the lottery for the NYC marathon and waited with a profound ambivalence; my previous marathon attempt was an abysmal jumble of injury and disappointment, and I wasn't sure I wanted to wreck my New York fantasy in such a dramatic way.  And so, when the lottery results were posted and I saw that my number hadn't come up, I felt relief: not this year.  At the same time, though, I started searching for other races, and I finally settled on Pensacola--I needed a corrective experience.  My training for Pensacola was riddled with insult and injury, but I stubbornly persisted, and on the morning of the race I awoke at 4 a.m. from a dream in which I'd missed the race by almost 3 hours--in the dream, I'd spent the evening playing the party circuit, and at gun time I found myself at a bowling alley drinking beer straight from the pitcher.  Some faceless person in the dream pointed this out to me and my response was "Oh well.  It's not like I'm running New York."

I awoke from the dream, dressed in the dark in the tiny hotel room where my children snored precariously, brushed my teeth and grabbed my gear.  It was a 3/4 mile walk to the start from the hotel, and it was fucking cold outside.  I headed towards the water, nibbling my bagel and sipping my orange juice, ignoring the pickup full of drunks who tailed me for a few blocks, plotting my strategy, calming my nerves.  At the start, I chatted with a woman who'd had a baby 6 months before: she looked my age, and her goal time was 25 minutes faster than mine.  I wished her luck and turned my thoughts to the road.

Everyone says that the marathon is psychological.  They're right, of course, but it's like childbirth: you don't really know the truth of it until you've been through it.  You can sort of appreciate it, from a distance, maybe you think you can understand the pain and exhilaration of it, but until you do it, you can't possibly know.  I ran the first 17 miles of Pensacola in a pleasant fog; it was a comfortable, predictable pace and pain.  I chatted with a woman who'd shattered her pelvis in a previous marathon and had spent the last 18 months in physical therapy; she seemed resigned to misery.  Since it was Veteran's Day weekend, a strange melange of ROTC kids lined the route, and they were intermittently aloof and frighteningly aggressive; around mile 20, when the terrible despair started to set in, one of them got in my face, ran alongside me for several yards, and yelled, "YOU'VE GOT ONE MORE 10K! YOU CAN DO THAT IN YOUR FUCKING SLEEP!" (Yes, it helped.)

The last 10k of that race were nightmarish; my body was failing me, I felt my right leg disintegrating, my will collapsing.  It was hot and I was thirsty and nauseated.  But at mile 26, when a woman cheered in my face, I didn't want to punch her; I actually smiled, and I cried.  I knew I was close to my goal. I wanted to finish the race in 3 hours and 45 minutes--my Boston Qualifying time--and though I wasn't wearing a watch, I thought I must be close.  And even when I crossed the finish line and saw that I'd missed my mark by just 2 minutes (2 minutes!), I didn't feel anything close to disappointment.  I felt relieved, and proud, and incredulous: my body could actually do this? For real?  Look at that woman, who was going to crush me, limping tearfully towards the aid station--that could be me, but it isn't.  Not this time.  This time, I'm going to enjoy my second place finish.  I'm going to drink beer and eat 3 cookies and some boiled shrimp and collect my prize and take my kids to the beach.  Today, I am whole.

Like most great races, the feeling didn't last long.  After the new year I started the feel the itch again, and thought about running the Mardi Gras marathon.  I ended up settling for the half marathon, and had a great race, and then I had another, and with a sort of fuck-it-all resolve, I entered the NYC lottery once again.

And guess what?

I got in.

Eggs and Fishes

Syd has become a voracious reader in the last several months.  She reads in the car, during meals, before bed--given pretty much any opportunity.  Lately she's been working her way through "Ramona and her Father," which has generated some interesting questions about job loss, family security, tobacco addiction, and religion.  The latter subject was broached after I finished reading loud the last part of the book's final chapter, in which Ramona takes part in the church's Christmas pageant.  There's a lot of stuff about Beezus looking "holy" (try explaining that concept to a 6-year-old at 9:10 p.m.) and bits of some hymns, which I sang with relish (those church songs are transportational--I could practically smell the incense).  As I closed the book, Sydney gave me a shy look and said, "I don't know about the apes and fishes thing, but I definitely believe in God.  I'm sorry, Mama."

It was a strange moment, on several accounts.  At first I had no idea what she meant by "apes and fishes"--until I remembered that we'd had a talk about evolution a few days before. Now that was a loaded exchange, given that a few days before that she'd insisted I tell her where babies come from ("And don't say "the daddy gives something to the mommy," I want to know exactly how") and I'd used the term "fishies" to describe sperm (I know.  Kick me. Hard.) and she had visibly recoiled.  Fast forward to the evolution talk; we can all probably imagine her struggle to understand the intersection between sexual and evolutionary fish.  And the God thing? What do you do with the God thing?

It wasn't that she professed belief; I'm more than fine with that.  Supportive, actually.  It was her apology that threw me--the fact that she clearly sensed a betrayal.  Sure, her Dad is a staunch atheist, but her Mama?  I've always considered myself pretty open with my kids; I'm happy to let them find their own ways, and I'm more surprised when they show similar proclivities to my own than when they digress.  For example, last week Syd came home from her first day at Jimmy Club and told me about a cheerleading class in which they'd learned a cheer that ended with a triumphant "we're number one and we'll beat you!" She told me she felt bad about potentially hurting the other group's feelings and tried to get her group to change the ending to "we're number one and so are you."  She was voted down but said she was going to ask her counselor about it again the next day.  I was insanely touched and proud: talk about strength of character!  But at the same time, I recognized how incredibly different we are; when she'd recited the chant my first thought had been "That isn't hard enough.  It should be more like "we're number one and we'll crush you."

Point being, we're very different people, Syd and I.  And that's an excellent thing.

The religion issue is no different--I'm happy to see her considering the issue, and I'd love for her to find her way into, around, or away from it.  Not only that, but I had an incredibly positive, enriching, and at times life-saving experience with organized religion when I was myself a child, and what kind of asshole parent would discourage her kid from seeking out the same?  When my mom was terribly ill, when we had no money, when I wanted to learn to play music, when I succeeded and when I failed, when I thought no one loved me, when the other kids were asshole bullies, the church community was there--and not in a creepy "come to Jesus and he will heal you" kind of way.  Just a straight up, we-got-your-back, salt-of-the-earth, kind of way.  I'd love the same for Sydney.  My girl is a social animal; she is kind and loving and gregarious, she craves love and affection--and maybe she'll find that in a religious community.  And anyone who dares to suggest otherwise can kiss my agnostic ass.

So why does she doubt my support?  Why does she need to apologize?  In some small ways I must be suggesting disapproval--which is strange, because aside from shit like bombing abortion clinics or doing this, I would enthusiastically support my kids in whatever they choose to do.

It's astounding, the inner lives of children.  Goes to show you never can tell.

Pause

Last night, on the ride home from the mall:

S: Mom, McDonald's must want to make a lot of money.  They have signs everywhere.

M: That's definitely true, honey. 

S: Why do people eat there if it's so unhealthy for your body? 

M: I'm not sure, honey.  I think because they like the taste and because it doesn't cost a lot of money.

S: (thinking)

S: But what makes it so unhealthy? Because it's fried, right?

M: Yes, and other things.

S: Like what?

M: Well, you know the chicken nuggets?  They only have a very tiny bit of actual chicken in them.  The rest is beaks and feet and bones that are all ground up into a paste, which they mix with chemicals and a thing that is sort of like the gas we put in our cars, to make the nugget.  They do this because it's cheaper than using mostly chicken.

S: Wait a minute, wait a minute, can you pause for a minute?

M: Sure, why?

S: Because I have to scream for a little bit.

The Gaze

For as long as I can remember, I've used reading and writing as a means of palliative care.  As a very young person, I read everywhere: in the bathtub, in the car, during meals, as I fell asleep and when I woke up.  I preferred pastoral narratives, particularly those in which the child protagonists engaged in solitary acts of adventure and survival (I still have the warped paperback copy of 'Farmer Boy' that took a plunge into the bath one sad, lonely evening).  In 3rd grade, when my folks were finally and dramatically splitting up, Mrs. Galloway allowed and encouraged me to spend class time writing plays, which I would teach to selected peers at recess.  In 7th grade I discovered poetry when an ambitious teacher exposed us to William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow;" it was my first attempt at analysis and I loathed the endeavor, the dissection of beauty into little bits of reason and explanation (funny, I would go on to do exactly that as a music theorist).  From then on, writing was a permanent fixture and, along with playing music, my primary coping mechanism.  While other kids were getting high and drunk and screwing and all that other fun stuff, I was writing poetry and stories and essays and discovering I could play pretty much any piece of music without looking at notation. I considered myself a "creative" and felt pity for those who didn't have access to those types of expression.

It was that way for a long time; even after coming to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to write or play or teach music for a living, I still wrote every day.  And then I became pregnant with Sydney, and the writing stopped.  It's not that I got lazy or overwhelmed; I simply could not write.  Every writer, amateur or otherwise, experiences blocks, but this felt less like a block than it did an absence: that thing had gone away.  I didn't have anything to say.

After Syd was born it gradually resurfaced, and I started writing a little, though hesitantly (I was shaken by the gestational episode).  I started this blog and that seemed to help a bit, and I gradually got back into some more creative rhythms. I became pregnant with Evan and had another episode, but with less anxiety attached, as I assumed--correctly--that it would pass at some point after he was born.  Funny thing was, I never stopped to consider why it happened--a strange thing really, for such a navel-gazing introvert.

It took this latest episode to turn my gaze back inward.  Why was this happening?  There are a ton of books out there on writer's block and I've always been suspicious of every single one.  The answer I'd constructed for myself--that the effort and energy of creating a life sapped whatever other energies I otherwise possessed--seems now like complete bullshit.  Now, I'm forced to confront my block with true honesty, not the superficial and placating self-reflection that often poses as honesty.  I'm forced to admit that I avoid the inward gaze the way most of us avoid dental work: we know it's necessary and ultimately healthy, but it's scary and painful and costly.  So we don't call, or we make an appointment and skip it.  The way most people avoid therapy.

I'd like to change this.  I'd like to embrace the gaze, but the problem is this: the problem is pain.

This year has been the most brutally painful time of my entire life.  I didn't lose a child (knock on some fucking wood, ya'll), I have my health (mostly, though that is seriously neglected), but otherwise it's in shambles.  But there's a funny thing about suffering: when done properly, one can emerge victorious.  I know this because I've witnessed it in many of my clients, and it never fails to amaze me (and them).  You suffer tremendously for a period of time, you cry and scream and destroy your health and ruin relationships and your work suffers from lack of attention, but if you're honest, if you gaze openly into the weeping void, you learn.  Maybe you learn that life is hard and sucky and maybe you hate your parents for forcing it on you, but more often than not you learn astounding things about yourself.  You learn that you are deeply flawed.  You learn about your capacity to hurt the people you love in terrible ways.  You learn that you are vulnerable, and you learn to have compassion for that vulnerability.  You look at photos of yourself as a young child and realize that that little person deserves love, and affection, and forgiveness and compassion.  And if you've done the work properly, you learn how to give yourself those things, instead of insisting that everyone around you provide it.  Because those people are flawed, too, and they will always let you down.  Sooner or later, no matter how much they care.

Writing has always been my honest gaze; even when I'm not writing sappy shit like this, it has forced me to turn inward and use only my own words, my own thoughts--to turn a jumble of nonsense into coherent narrative.  And I see now, I see it very clearly, the reason why I've avoided it.  We're all, most of us at least, afraid of the gaze.  That's likely why the incidence of substance abuse is so high among those types we like to label as "creatives:" the pain of the gaze is intense.  It illuminates the darkest parts of us, the parts we never want to acknowledge, let alone show to anyone, ever.  It fucking hurts.

But it's essential to growth and happiness--I've learned that much over the past year.  And although I'm not a particularly spiritual person, I'm using these words from Thich Nhat Hanh as a guide through whatever remains of my miserable journey:

“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.”

Expansion

If you've had the unfortunate experience of reading this blog over the last several years, or if you have the even more unfortunate experience of knowing me personally, you know how I feel about a certain Reggio Emilia-inspired childcare center here in my favorite city in the Universe. You may have read my thoughts about it here and here and here; maybe you've even donated money to the place (thank you very much, by the way). You probably know how much Abeona House means to me and to my children (insert gratuitous picture),



and that it is a perfect example of how love and hope and community can spring from ruin and despair. And if you've had the very wonderful privilege of meeting my children (get ready for more manipulative photo-inserting),



you probably know how happy and empathic and creative they are, and that I attribute so much of that awesomeness to the years they've spent at Abeona House.

But do you know that we moved, last November, to a large, wonderful building in Mid-City? That we doubled our capacity?

Did you know that we now have a kitchen and hired an incredible chef, who prepares amazing meals for our kids each day at no extra cost to families?

You probably don't know that expanding our capacity allowed us to serve a much broader and more diverse community, and that we're now eligible for the CCAP program, which enables low-income families to access quality childcare. Isn't that awesome?

If you helped us move over Thanksgiving weekend, or stopped by the Open House we had in December, you saw the huge yard and play equipment. And if you know my son, you understand the importance of green space (lightsabers need a wide, wide berth).

If you're an astute reader (and of course you are), you probably understand by now what I'm about to ask for. You know about our annual Crescent City Classic fundraiser, which we affectionately refer to as the Reggio Run, where we all ask folks to sponsor us (read: donate money to the school) and then we dress up in ridiculous costumes and run or walk the 10 kilometers that make up one of the largest road races in the country.

What kind of ridiculous costumes? Glad you asked!

Last year, I ran 10 Kilometers, in 85-degree heat and suffocating humidity, in this polyester Princess Leia costume. Yes, I ran the whole way with the blaster. Yes, that's my real hair in those buns. Yes, when I started to sweat it was totally and completely see-through. Yes, every male under the age of 65 asked me to stop and pose for a photo.

I also raised close to $900 for the school, and collectively we raised over $8,000. That money was vital to keep our small operation alive, and allowed us to grow bigger, to reach an economy of scale that improves teacher quality of life, enables true diversity, and has made us more financially solvent.

(Also, the fundraiser was an excuse for me to force my children to star in a ridiculous, poorly-edited video. Please watch it--it's for the children.)

This year, we're raising money for our Scholarship Fund, which is an absolutely essential resource for a large number of our wonderful families. Every penny is tax-deductible. Think of it as sponsoring a family, or if you have the unfortunate experience of knowing me personally, you might think of it as an affirmation of the hard work and total devotion I've shown to the organization. Or, if you're in the questionable position of loving New Orleans, think of it as supporting the continued growth and revitalization of the city. Or, do it just to shut me up--because this won't be my last ask, believe you me.

If you're inclined to donate, you can do so through our website: www.abeonahouse.org

Or, if you're still paying for stamps, you can mail a donation to the Center: 3401 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70119.

Every little bit helps. If you donated before, please do so again. If you haven't donated before but will consider it if I force my children to star in another poorly-produced film, I will gladly pimp them out. Just say the word. After all, it's for the children.