Fireflies

It's just before 5 am and I've been up for an hour. I feel as energized as I've been in recent months, having had, for the first time since November, six hours of relatively uninterrupted sleep. Quinn slept incredibly well for the first 3.5 months of her life, but once it was time for me to go back to work, she started waking up two or three times each night instead of one. Last night, before putting her to bed, we gave her rice cereal for the first time…seems to have done the job. I won't get into how frustrating the mixed messages are about breastfeeding…in part because this is not about that, and in part because this little motion activated firefly, that hangs above her play mat which is right in front of me, just started its little tune and light show and, well, it's not moving…someone is trying to tell me to get to the point.

The reason I woke up this morning was a dream, not the baby. I dreamt that I got a phone call from someone at the hospital. They wanted to speak to my mother who, in this dream, was sleeping in the other room. She has, of course, been "sleeping in the other room" for many years now, but periodically I have these dreams where it seems very normal that she is here. In this dream she was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up, so I asked what the person on the phone wanted. It was a woman's voice and she told me that my grandmother, my mother's mother, had had an accident in the hospital and she'd lost a lot of blood. She suggested my mom might want to get down there right away, and she connected me to a man who gave me instructions about how to get into the hospital after hours. In my dream it was also the middle of the night. When I hung up, I woke up. And I laid there in my own bed trying to decide whether or not I should wake my mom, until eventually I realized I wasn't going to be able to do that.

I shifted gears and realized Quinn had not woken me up for a 1 am feeding, and I thought about the trouble she's been having taking bottles with her babysitter, and I decided to get up and pump so she'd have a fresh bottle later today rather than a frozen one. Once I made all kinds of noise doing that, she was awake, so I fed her and changed her before putting her back to bed. When I got back into bed myself, I realized, sadly, that Darth Vader had once again replaced my husband, I thought more about my dream, and I knew I would not get back to sleep.

So, here I am, typing next to the woodstove as the fire gets going, wondering about my grandmother, and thinking about the fact that I don't believe in god and I don't believe in heaven. I imagine most people on the planet are really just fertilizer when they go and that's a perfectly noble end if you ask me. But even though I've never believed in heaven, I've also never been able to believe that my mother's spirit, magnificent as it was, could simply just cease to exist. I've often sensed that her energy is still out there in the world.

That's not to say that I always feel her with me; I don't. But I do have these dreams, often at critical times in my life, when she shows up. She is still beautiful. And she is usually smiling. She never speaks, but the messages of the dreams are always clear. So, as the house starts to heat up and I make my coffee this morning, and the sun eventually starts to shine on the distant horizon, visible thanks to Sam's determined tree cutting efforts this past summer, I'll be wondering if my grandmother has finally died—she's been trying to, I think, for years—and waiting for it to be late enough to call my sister and find out. And even if she hasn't died, the dream has me thinking about her, and about my mom, and about the fact that most of my stories are, and really always have been, about mothers and daughters.

Good Thing I Like Pie

In the winter of 2007-2008, I planned a wedding, got married, and built a house. I wasn't alone in these projects, obviously, but I was fully involved. The following winter, I threw a lot of parties, hosted a lot of dinners, skied a lot of loops with friends and drank a lot of champagne. Last winter, I grew a baby.

She's here now. Her name is Quinn. And that makes me a mother. So now, in the winter of 2011, this is my project: figuring out how to be someone's mom.

In the beginning, when she first arrived, I practiced just saying the words. When we were alone, usually when I was changing her diaper and she was lying on the changing pad looking up at me, I would say, "Hello. I am your mom. I am your mother," stretching out the words to listen to the way they sounded as I said them. They sounded foreign. And I felt like a fake. I have often felt this way in my life…like someone pretending to be something, hoping the real people won't notice and discover my embarrassing secret: I am not really this person. I am really someone less than this person. This time around, it's the mother of all secrets…sorry for the pun, but what better use of it, right?

Once I started to feel a little more comfortable introducing myself to Quinn, the next phase was to see if she'd accept me…to see how comfortable she was having me be her mom. So I would slip around the corner into her room and look over the edge of her crib to meet her glance. As her eyes adjusted to the new object that was my face, I would ask her, "Are you my baby?" And then I'd wait nervously for her to decide.

I respected the fact that she would take her time, as if she was trying to weigh the pros and cons and make a wise choice. And I'm grateful that each time, after a relatively brief pause, she would answer with a full body muscle spasm—arms and legs reaching up and then slamming back down all at once—and a big squinty-eyed, open-mouthed smile. I took all that to be a yes.

So far, she hasn't rejected me. But, that's the phase I'm in now…wondering how to be the kind of mom she won't reject. I had a great role model for 21 years. I think my own mother was flawless—literally. I try hard to think of a weakness, just to prove she was human. I think back to the times we fought, or the times I thought I hated her, or the time I ran away for an afternoon. Each of those times, I was the idiot. I can't think of a single time she failed me, or let me down, or disappointed me. She was my idol and my best friend. And, as a teenage girl, that made me a bit weird, and I didn't even care.

But here's the problem: I'm worried that I can't possibly live up to her. The thing about role models is that they're on a different level. So here I am, in my "mom" shoes and sometimes I can't make them move. It's like I'm standing here in a vast open space and I'm looking down at a pair of yellow wingtips or something, marveling over how strange they look, and then looking around at how much ground I have to cover.

I actually wore yellow wingtips in high school. It was the eighties. And my mom let me. I think she even encouraged me to, but maybe that was because she secretly thought I looked hilarious. At the time, I thought they were very cool. Now, they are a source of great joy for my little sister Amy who loves telling people that I wore yellow wingtips. Amy was the kind of sister who would stand behind a locked screen door laughing when you had wet your corduroys at the neighbors' house playing hide-and-seek because you didn't want to lose, even though you were in the fourth grade.

I was stuck standing still then too…I had good intentions (or at least I thought I did): to win the game. I had an intense desire to win, I always do. I had the resolve. The patience to stick it out for the long haul. I just didn't have the bladder. And that's what I worry about. What weakness will surface in my efforts to be a good mom? What challenges will render me immobile, and ill-equipped?

Recently someone at work asked me how Quinn was doing with her babysitter. "Great," I said, "her babysitter is a much better mom than I'll ever be." The person I was speaking with knows the babysitter too; she teaches part-time at our school. She tried to reassure me, "She's just a different kind of mom." Yeah, I thought, the kind that says "Oooh! I hear some noise in your britches!" while I'm the kind of mom who says, "Man! Your butt stinks! Now I have to change your friggin diaper again!"

I'm almost certain my own mother died without ever dropping the F-bomb. And while I feel a little sorry that she didn't get to experience the joy, the humor, the power of that word, I am also humbled by her unfaltering class, her good judgment, and her restraint. She managed to express exuberance, and be funny, and wield unfathomable power over me without ever using that word…she was more intelligent and more creative. She had artistry as a mother.

I've got yellow wingtips, wet corduroys and a mouth like my Uncle Rey who really was a trucker. I'm screwed. Quinn is going to grow up with the smell of my fear! She is going to laugh at me from behind that locked door. It all comes rushing back…all the former awkwardness in my life, all the fear of failure and loss. It's all wrapped up into this one thing: "I am your mother. Are you my baby?"

Some day maybe I'll feel confident, or sentimental, and I'll write about the way Quinn's face relaxes and her eyes close when I stroke her forehead, the way my mom would do for me when I put my head in her lap. Of course, thinking back to that also makes me think of the times when I thought I needed to be comforted and my mom would smile at me lovingly and then let her hand drop onto my forehead with a thud and say, "Oh, honey! What's the matter?" and then she'd laugh at me…and in doing so she'd force me to laugh at myself.

So, here I am, trying to laugh at myself…That same little sister, who locked me out when I desperately needed to get in, also once told me, "You can't control what hasn't happened yet." This may be obvious to most people, but for anyone who has the kind of control issues I've had, you'll understand how this could be a revelation. Amy has always been wiser than I, despite being four years younger. And I think back to that bit of wisdom all the time, I can't control what hasn't happened yet. And this time, it's for real. Quinn will be the biggest test of my life. The marriage is holding together, getting a little better most days. The house works; it is warm and pretty and people always tell me they feel good when they're in it. And the baby I grew, well, she's amazing…she's healthy and beautiful and I could tell from the first day she showed up that she has the power to see right into my soul.

So now the only thing left to work on is me…everything else is done. And even though I'm trying not to control what hasn't happened yet, and I'm trying not to get so caught up in my desire to "win" this one that I end up embarrassing myself, I do wish my mom could be here to help me figure it all out…to convince me that my shoes will get me where I need to go…and that I don't look too weird wearing them. 

Not Exactly Well Equipped

This is the vehicle we use to plow our 1/4 mile of steep, narrow Class IV road...when it starts. It hasn't started since before our last storm, which left about a foot of snow. This is what it sounds like on a good day...

Today is not a good day. Today is a What Are We Doing Up Here? kind of day. Yesterday, when I didn't have to go anywhere...well, that was a good day. A We Live In Paradise! kind of day. 

Do you ever play that "if I won the lottery..." game? Well, I'd buy that handsome, optimistic plow truck driver a brand new big beautiful beefy plow truck so he could saunter out the door with an easy mind, knowing his trusty truck would start right up, every damn time. And then he could enjoy his time plowing our road. And he could come back in the house with a still easy mind, to enjoy a cold beer, a hot dinner and a happy wife...every damn time. 

In the meantime, there are no eggs left in the fridge and it looks like another sled to work kind of day.

Somedays I Make It; Somedays I Don't

(hit play now; you'll know why later)

Step 1: After a long day at work, pick up baby and head home. 
Step 2: At base of hill, scan horizon for hapless dogs or neighbors and make sure the coast is clear. 
Step 3: Step on the gas, hard, and gun it up the hill. 
Step 4: Smile as your car makes it to the top, slides around the corner and seems to be in the clear. 
Step 5: Hold breath as you realize, you are not going to make it. 
Step 6: Ride it out as far as possible, step on brake and regroup. 
Step 7: Glance in rearview mirror and check on baby.
Step 8: Back up to level spot, put it in drive and gun it; slide sideways into ditch. BAM! 
Step 9: Be thankful for bomb-proof car seat and try to convince yourself that you are daring, not an idiot!
Step 10: Repeat steps 7-9 three more times, with particular emphasis on Step 9. 
Step 11: Use gravity to get the wheels pointed down hill, then hope for the best as you careen past aforementioned neighbors’ houses. 
Step 12: Park car, prepare to load baby into pack, try not to curse husband who sent baby off in just pajamas and a hat, then admit to self that you did the same thing yesterday. 
Step 13: Try not to let baby see that you are warm while she is cold. 
Step 14: Hike baby ¼ mile up hill to house. 


Part II
Step 1: It’s a brand new day. Put on empty backpack and sled ¼ mile down hill to parked car. 
Step 2: Load up baby’s gear and strap car seat to sled. 
Step 3: Hike back up to the house and give husband baby gear. 

Step 4: Feed baby, shower, dress for work, then pull sledding clothes on over work clothes.
Step 5: Say goodbye to baby, say goodbye to husband, insert earbuds and hit play on "Blue Mind"

...got no time, got no mind, follow the line in my life, no time to think, 

time for sleep? no! time to sink way into the blue deep...

Step 6: Exhale, get back on sled, enjoy the ride.

Comfort Food

Last night I hosted an evening visit with my friend Char.  We were going to have wine and some grilled cheese sandwiches—something simple. She brought a loaf of my favorite bread and two types of cheese for us to try (an herbed goat cheese and some sort of fig-honey cheese that was surprisingly good). She also brought two potatoes for baking, some organic carrots and a homemade meatloaf (her mother's recipe with mustard and horseradish; unbelievably good). And, she brought a bottle of my new favorite wine (Pennywise Petite-Syrah; tastes a little bit like bacon—wine and bacon, that's all I have to say). And, believe it or not, she also brought two types of dessert.

What did I bring to the table? My tired self in my dad's old jeans, my unwashed hair and a literal ton of gratitude. That's it. Not my usual standard for hosting, but that's the kind of week I'm having.

In the course of our conversation, Char told me more about her recent yoga retreat at Kripalu. I told her about the two yoga classes I had wedged into our schedule this week…and I say our because for the first time in my post living-with-my-parents life I have to base my schedule on the schedules of two other people (more about them later). Then I told her about having to cancel those two yoga classes. The backstory here is the explanation for why I brought nothing but my dad's old jeans and my messy hair to the table, but it's not a backstory worth telling because the telling would be whining and I don't really have anything to whine about. Anyway, I heard about Char's yoga retreat and exhaled. Then I said out loud, mostly to myself, "Someday, when this breastfeeding experiment is over, and Sam's shoulder is healed, and life feels a bit more manageable, I'd like to do something like that. It would be a nice reward. A good way to regroup."

Some people might wonder why I feel I need a reward. A healthy baby is the reward. A healthy husband is the reward. I know these things. But I also know that I'm junk if I'm not healthy and well rested too. And I have some feelings about this whole cult of motherhood and being a wife, and I'll try to share those feelings gently, over multiple entries, so as not to alienate my friends and family members who are good at self-sacrifice and better at these things than I am.

Anyway, when Char left, she put some envelopes on my dining room table where the meatloaf had been, and I put two packages in her bag. This is how we exchange Christmas gifts: sometime after the chaos of the holiday has subsided, handed over with love, meant to be opened leisurely sometime later. The only instructions were that I should open mine when Sam opens his. I'm not good at savoring unopened presents; maybe later I'll tell you my theories about waiting, about patience and about surprises. For now, I'll tell you that before I poured my coffee, I handed Sam his envelope and told him to hurry up because I was opening mine and we had to do it together. Here's what the card said: "A joy that is shared is a joy made double." That's also what Char wrote on the gift certificates for our own Kripalu yoga retreats…to be used sometime later.

So, this morning, I'm back in my dad's old jeans, and my hair still hasn't been washed, and I'm still carrying around that ton of gratitude. And I'm drinking some coffee now, watching the snow fall, and savoring the promise of a yoga retreat, and savoring the Chinese proverb about the joy that is shared because it brings to mind a hundred other stories I want to tell. And I'm wishing that everyone in the world could have a Char.