Rites of Passage Part 2

It’s happening. Today, the little guy will “graduate” from preschool. In some ways, it’s been a long time coming. This is our sixth year at this preschool between the two boys and what I know for sure is that I will not miss that tuition payment. I’ve sat in countless carpool lines, attended a number of Christmas programs and Halloween parades and Easter egg hunts. I’ve received numerous laminated lists of things about mom on Mother’s Day. I have piles of artwork and a handful of Handwriting Without Tears workbooks. I have made mom friends that have carried through to other aspects of our community life – elementary school. church, sports, neighbors. It has been a wonderful experience and I cherish the time both boys spent there (minus that tuition payment, of course).

But getting both boys in the same school, on the same bus, with the same schedule? Can’t lie. I’m desperately looking forward to it.

And yet, this week, I have been weighed down. Slow. Going through the motions. I wanted to celebrate this week. I’d finished the rough draft. I was ahead of the game. I’ve been knocking out little projects the last few days that have festered while I immersed myself in my daily writing cocoon. None of it mattered though. Come 2pm every afternoon, I find myself floundering. Bored. Lonely. Not giving the kids my all or even what feels like a significant percentage of it.

I think some of this malaise is the milestone of preschool matriculation. My baby isn’t a baby anymore. I think some of it is anxiety about the summer. The time to fill. The fights to referee. The patience to stockpile. The activities to plan. The revision work to try to do while two active boys bounce off the walls and into each other.

But what I realized today is that our family is changing. Again. We haven’t had this big of a change since B joined us to make our family of three a family of four. I am now the mom of two school aged children. It’s a subtle change, but no less important. I can in no way be considered a  new mommy no matter how many new challenges present themselves on a daily basis. I am joining the ranks of PTA and sports leagues and real growing up. I’ve kept them safe and taught them their alphabet and prepared them for a world outside of our four walls. Now comes the emotional growing up that is fraught with peer pressure and real failures and stinging embarrassments and sparks of excitement and undercurrents of desires that will make my children the people they will grow into. I’ve had a toe in these waters the last three years, but somehow, sending a second child into this big, noisy elementary school world pushes me all the way in. I have no more split allegiances, no more conflicting commitments.

While I am ready for this, and even in some ways welcoming it, I am also feeling a bit unsure. My mom went back to work when my younger sister started kindergarten. In my 20s, when the future seemed simply to be a matter of making a plan and it would happen, I assumed I’d take time off from my career to have kids then go back when they were all in school just like my mom did. That’s what I knew. That seemed to work. That was a balance I felt I could achieve, manage, enjoy.

Life has a funny way of responding to plans, though, doesn’t it? I started having kids later than I thought I would (although by no means “late”) based on jobs, moves, money. Then I went back to work while B was still little. Something I never thought I’d do, but enjoyed and managed. Then that ended. So now, here I am. Back at square one with that deadline approaching at the end of summer.

The good part of going back when I did and being let go when I was is that I am much clearer on what I do want to be doing (and what I don’t). I have a direction, inspiration, goals. They aren’t the goals I was planning for eight years ago when I made the decision to stay home initially, but I’m at peace with that. So I’m curious as to why this angst seems to be creeping up as I head into this new stage of our family life. Is it the lack of a paycheck? The perception of not having a real day job? Or simply fear at no longer having any excuses? Or is it that sneaky doubt lady whispering again already?

I’m not sure I have an answer, or will any time soon. If parenting has taught me anything it’s that you can’t always be prepared for what’s ahead. Sometimes you just have to pack what you can, hope for the best and keep your eyes open for the bumps and detours that will become your greatest memories.

So if you see me this week, be a little gentle. I’m dealing with stuff. Stuff that doesn’t always have a name or an easy solution, or perhaps doesn’t have a solution at all, but just needs to be acknowledged with a head nod as you keep on walking towards your destination and understanding that wherever you are is not always where you end up and that where you end up might just be where you were supposed to go all along.

What I know for sure is that I will watch a happy, healthy, boisterous boy graduate from preschool today. Tomorrow I will greet my 8 year old off the bus from his last day of second grade officially marking the halfway point of his elementary school career. After that? Who knows for sure? There will be pool time and ice cream and probably more yelling than I want and sweat and smelly feet and movies and vacation. Through it all, we will grow into our next selves, our new school aged family, and come August, I’ll make a new plan and wait for life to laugh at it knowing that I will be prepared to see what she has in store for me next.

As long as these two precious babies boys and their dad are by my side, however, I think it will be a wonderful journey.

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Click here to read the original Rites of Passage.

The End

I typed the words “The End” in the middle of a page with blank space below it. No new chapters. The words were done. The story complete.

Well, complete for now. Step one, rough draft? Check. Notice I call it a rough draft, not even a first draft yet (not even close). Now the hard part beings. The part where I figure out what the book is really. Friends and family ask how the work is going and what the story is about and I hem and haw and keep it vague. It’s not literary, I say. It’s women’s fiction, I proclaim. It’s about four women at various stages of life, I babble. It’s still a work in progress, I defend. But truly I don’t give a clear answer because I haven’t really been sure. And that’s scary. Really scary. Keeps me up at night sometimes scary. Should I know? Should I have a goal, a meaning, a more defined story arc while writing? Who knows? This is the first time I’ve ever done this and I’m learning as I go. I’m making mistakes and finding what works and what doesn’t. The next step is all about going back. Figuring out the key ideas and making them sing. Cutting those darlings and polishing the real story.

I’m excited about the work ahead. It feels like the real work. What I’ve been doing for the last several months feels more like laying tarp, washing walls and taping off molding when you paint. It’s tedious and takes time and all you want to do is get that new color on the wall to see the completed job and enjoy the difference. But, if you don’t do the preparation work correctly, you end up with a sloppy mess and no one is happy. For the story, now comes more in-depth character study and analysis, setting development that evolved as I was writing and has finally become a clearer picture in my head, continuity checking, additional story fill, and deleting all the overwritten, trite and boring prose and dialogue that I slogged through and might be weighing down the story but helped me springboard into a more productive day of writing at the time.

But I’m trying to take a little space – not a lot, but a little – in an attempt to have some perspective on the story. It’s the last week of school and there are parties and preschool graduations and teacher gifts and other time commitments. I know it will be smart for me to simply take this week for me and the boys. To truly enjoy this time as we wind down into summer. But I’d be lying if I didn’t also admit to the pressure of knowing the next four days boast the only truly free hours I am guaranteed for the next 10 weeks.

And that’s when the fear and anxiety and doubt started to creep in. That doubt, she’s a bitch. She’s sneaky and second guesses everything I do. She laughs when I post on Facebook I finished a book, relishing the moment I’ll have to tell all these wonderfully supportive people in my life that offered their congratulations and words of encouragement that I am really a fraud. That sure, I wrote something that will never sell, never see the light of day, never amount to anything but a giant file on my laptop. She’s the one that is attempting to take up residence, snickering at the dream nearby, teasing it, taunting it, whispering to my logical self that I should start scanning the job boards for PR work now so I can have a “real” job by fall. She makes the dream hide, cowering behind practicality, hoping nobody notices it for a little while.

The thing about doubt, however, is I’m on to her. That’s why I’ve been so public about what I’m doing, the journey I’m on, the lessons I’m learning. By posting about dreams and sharing my tiny accomplishments with my friends both in person and online, I create a chain of believers who believe in me, who speak louder than doubt’s whispers, who hold tight and prop me back up when I attempt to sit down. And those moments have been invaluable on this leap of faith.

So it was with added joy that an envelope was waiting in my mailbox for me Saturday afternoon. Enclosed was my very own flower from a dear friend who has offered the kind of moral support I can never begin to thank her for. Her words are always spot on and impeccably timed. She was a coworker of my husband’s. Then we both had boys. Then she moved. Far away. And somehow, this strangely tangential connection fostered between cubicle walls and a third party has strengthened to a bond that I’m not quite sure either of us understand, but I think has been mutually beneficial to both of us as we navigate motherhood and big questions about careers and personal definitions of success. On a day when doubt was threatening to get louder, she sent me a dreamer flower.

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(If you aren’t familiar with Fellow Flowers, get familiar. I’m not a runner. Trust me. But the message this organization imparts to women goes so much deeper than running, so don’t be scared off by the running background.)

The dreamer flower description states:

“Dreamer. To show grace and courage. To embrace the challenge and welcome new beginnings. Putting yourself out there. Doing it scared. I will run through the fear to feel the joy.”

Just what I needed, just when I needed it. My aunt congratulated me for completing the book by saying that “The End” was only the beginning. So true. We are all diamonds in the rough, formed by the pressure of life and challenges and accomplishments and successes and failures, that we now must polish into our best selves. Just like I’ll do with this book. We are all works in progress. Rough drafts.

Now the hard part begins.

And I couldn’t be more excited. I’m putting myself out there. Doing it scared. And that makes it feel even better. Because today? Today is the next beginning. And I can’t wait to get started. Again.

Of Dreams Deferred

Dreams.

Not sleep filled mash-ups of our daily events, subconscious desires, greatest fears and endless staircases causing us to get lost on our way to an exam we forgot to study for anyway, but those deep seeded desires that buoy us on our dark days, fill us with hope, flight, anxiety and illusions of fulfillment.

Dreams.

As children we have them. We live in them. We see no reason why we can’t be firefighting astronauts who invent ice cream sandwiches that don’t melt and then become president. We are taught there are boundaries to our homes. Boundaries to our playgrounds. Boundaries to our conduct. But we have yet to learn that there are boundaries to our dreams.

Somewhere, during our schooling and our day-to-day experiences with adults, we find a different reality. Someone says, “you can’t do that!” Or asks “Why would you want to do that?” Or indicates that we’re simply doing it “wrong” that there are better, righter ways to do that picture, dance, math problem, outfit selection, game. We are subjected to tests and regulations that are meant to homogenize the educational output of schools, not celebrate the diversity and uniqueness of its students.

Some escape. Or slip through the cracks. Or simply endure until they are on their own and can choose freely.

Others are simply so used to living up to a standard expectation that they forget to exceed it. I was one of those.

I dreamt of becoming a writer. I found the spot on the library or book store shelf where my book would reside. And yet, somehow, I knew that writing a book wasn’t an occupation. At least not a realistic one for me. It was compartmentalized as a dream. I was a practical thinker. An oldest child full of responsibility and rule following. I figured out the school formula. The way to write an essay that pleased a teacher then relearned the next year how to please the next one. I checked the required courses off my list and moved from high school to degree to job. Then, I moved from job to job to promotion to promotion to job to motherhood. A dream is something I’d be allowed to get to after success. Success as determined by the standard.

And so I worked. Always working. Always searching for happiness, fulfillment, gratification. And oftentimes I found it. I found it in jobs, in relationships, in moves, in travel and in challenges.

And yet…

When I suddenly found myself pushed off my path, a termination rather than my personal propulsion to the next step in my career, I woke up a bit. I stopped. I considered. I thought. I started to imagine, then to visualize before finally dreaming again. What was my dream? What could I accomplish? Not because it was next, but because I chose it? What should have been next was another PR job. I “should” have engaged in a furious networking with contacts to seek out new job opportunities. And some came anyway, nudges from former colleagues or neighbors or friends who knew of something or offered to put in a word. As much as I love PR, as much as I believe I am good at it, it isn’t a dream. I don’t dream of big media hits or starting my own firm or launching the next big thing.

I dream of words. Lots of words. Words that make sentences that make paragraphs printed on pages that fill the space between two hard covers bound with glue and reside on the shelf in a library or book store and then a night stand or suitcase or bus stop or vacation as those words are read and ingested by others, by readers.

This past weekend’s episode of Mad Men made me pause: I have been Don.

In the episode, Don is tasked with writing a speech about what the future holds for the agency. The man who can paint a picture of emotional depth about a slide projector is suddenly unable to conjure up any sort of potential plan for the future of his business. He soon realizes he has little capacity to imagine his own future as well. He’s lived his life in the present in order to outrun his past. He’s apparently forgotten there is a future. A next. And that he can control that. For him, the catalyst was divorce, the selling of his apartment (ironically, he was able to dream up a future for potential residents to his realtor, just not himself), the systematic dismantling of that piece of his life. He’s now faced with choices, making the remainder of this final season so captivating to audiences. Will he simply continue on the same path: womanizing, marrying, drinking, doing enough work to solidify his place in the ad world? Or will he dream? Will he act? With purpose? When asked in the episode if he’d wanted to be in advertising as a youth by one of his daughter’s flirtatious friends, he said, no he’d just wanted to be in New York. Since being there, he’d ticked off all the boxes: the wife, the family, the suburban home, the mistresses, the career, the new wife, the city penthouse. What will he do next now that the boxes are emptying?

While my life has never been dismantled to this extent nor been fraught with the drama or debauchery of Don’s, I have had many moments in life where someone asked what I wanted, what was next and I felt paralyzed with a lack of answers. It can be difficult to dream. We forget how to in the midst of the mundane, the drudgery of maintaining what we already have. I watch my children and listen to their far fetched dreams of where they will live or what their lives will be like or even just what they will do tomorrow. It’s brilliant and glossy and surreal and I bite my tongue to never tell them no. Because why not? Who am I to say they won’t be the first or best or only? Who am I to say their dreams should be bigger or smaller or perhaps a different shade of green? Who am I?

A dreamer.

I have often doubted my dream in the last year as I have committed to pursuing it. Luckily, I have family and friends who dream with me and keep me moving, seeking, reaching. I talk to my boys about it. I try to show them by example that dreams are fragile, to be protected, cradled in the nests of our hands, fed and nurtured and loved until they are ready to fly on their own.They get excited about my word count. They ask how many pages I’m up to, what my book is about or if it will be like the particular book they are reading at the moment.  Their excitement rubs off and I feel myself trying harder, if not always completely believing. But I’ve tasted it now. I run towards it. Eyes wide, hands open and follow where it leads. There is a lightness to my spirit now that I have let the dreams back in, a giddiness, an excitement. There, too, is a heaviness to the guilt, sometimes, of pursuing it at the expense of a vacation or summer camps or new furniture that a regular salary could have provided, but those are not dreams. Those are temporal and temporary.

Langston Hughes asked what happens to a dream deferred. His images are stark and graphic and entirely too true. But a dream deferred is preferable to a dream ignored. It’s never too late. Imagine a future. Take a step. Make a mistake. Find your spot on your own metaphorical book shelf. Dust off the dream you put down for later and see if later is now. Dream small. Dream big. Either way, the answer is simple.

Dream.

Action Plans

Maybe it’s the springtime feeling in the air. Maybe it’s the knowledge that I need to be bathing suit ready for our beach vacation in less than two months. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m two-thirds of the way done with the work in progress. Maybe it’s the fact that in five weeks (FIVE!!!!!!) the kids will officially be on summer vacation thereby making my time for writing and exercise a bit more complicated than it already is.

Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to full on challenge myself both mentally and physically for the next month.

Call me crazy, because, well, I probably am.

In the last two years, I’ve let my exercise habits dwindle down to barely there behind work and family commitments. Where working out was built in to my weekly routines a few years ago, I fell out of a regular habit. Sure, I try to stay active during my day (I have two boys, it’s hard not to be), we enjoy an occasional family hike, I go to a weekly yoga class, but I know I could be doing a whole lot better, feeling better, feeling stronger. I want to instill healthy habits in my children by setting strong examples. And, let’s be honest, there is a level of vanity in missing a more toned arm in a tank top.

In the last year, I’ve also committed to writing a book. Last summer, I was still adjusting to not having a job and I had no clue what I was doing. I started in earnest in September, hit my stride around Christmas time (finally!) and the last three months have boasted some hopeful results. I see the light at the end of the rough draft tunnel and already have a growing list of things I know I want to tackle in the revision process. But with summer and no camps quickly approaching, I know I need to spend some quality time with my work in progress in order to stay on track with my revision goals and timeline.

My health and my dream are two major things I shouldn’t compromise on, and yet I do. All the time. The amazing thing is that focusing on my health and my dream spills over positively to the rest of my life: being healthy and creatively fulfilled makes me a much better mom, wife and citizen. And yet I daily downgrade time for activity and writing in order to accommodate other people and responsibilities. I talk a lot about putting myself first. I complain a lot about not being able to. But the fact remains that I’m the only one that can do that. And so I am. I’m putting myself all in. I’m setting some goals and recruiting the family to help in concrete ways, not the usual hands thrown in the air, exasperated exclamation “I could use some help around here” while storming off way.

For the past week, I’ve been reflecting on my goals and doing a lot of thinking on how best to achieve them. I need structure and accountability. Without them, “increased exercise” or “weekend writing time” becomes just another vague item on the to-do list that moves from day to day then week to week then month to month then, well, you get the picture.

First, I’ve decided to create a schedule of daily physical activity. It’s flexible enough to accommodate scheduling snags, tired days and weather. I’ve done the legwork and researched classes at my gym that can help me when I’m feeling lazy. I’m posting my tactics publicly in the house so that the family can keep me accountable each week. We are also instituting a formal family activity day. We do a lot of informal family activities, but putting a family hike or basketball game or tennis match on the schedule each weekend allows for us all to help plan and facilitate fun new adventures for the family. The kids are psyched by the challenge and I’m eager to get out and explore more with them. Bottom line, for the next 30 days, I will do at least a half hour of dedicated physical activity for myself. EVERY. DAY.

Structuring the writing has been a tougher challenge for me. Currently, I do my writing exclusively when the boys are both at school – a small three hour period between 9:15 and 12:15 until August when the little guy joins the big kid at elementary school. I’ve tried writing at night and don’t always meet with great results. I’m tired in the evenings and enjoy just plopping down on the sofa with my DVR and Netflix and turning my brain off for awhile. I also tend to ignore the work in progress on the weekends, focusing on our family time and errands and chores I can accomplish while the hubby hangs with the kiddos. BUT. Neither of those things are getting me any closer to my goal of finishing a novel, revising a novel, shopping the novel, starting the next novel.

I’m taking a hard look at my schedule and habits and adding in some additional forced writing time. Yes. Inspiration is good, however, the fact of the matter is writing is all about getting your butt in the chair and fingers to the keys or pen to the paper, not about waiting for some divine flash of brilliance. I think we can all agree that a flash of brilliance is certainly not going to be coming in the middle of a Real Housewives marathon. I’m committing to at least two evenings of writing a week and two hours of dedicated weekend time. This will need to be scheduled. This will need to be prioritized. This will require the buy-in of the hubby and the boys. This may force me out of my comfortable office chair and into a local coffee shop or book store in order to avoid the pull of the pajamas and Apple TV. But I think it’s doable. I think it’s necessary. I think it might even create a change of pace that will provide its own kind of inspiration.

The great thing about both of these challenges is that I benefit from any new habits I create. I also benefit from any failures. If something isn’t working, I can use that to learn about what will. Learning how I work, both physically and mentally, only helps me move forward towards finding the things that do.

Sometimes we need to force ourselves out of our comfort zones. We need to cross the street to see something new. We need to watch a sunset or get up for a sunrise. We need to meet new people. We need to see new perspectives. We need to shake up routines and ditch old habits and find new ones.

I’ve created an action plan. It’s time for action.

What do you need to create an action plan to accomplish?

High Heeled Mama Reads: Before I Go by Colleen Oakley

Colleen Oakley is an Atlanta-based journalist. I came across some local writers I stalk follow promoting the debut of her first novel, Before I Go and was intrigued. The book is currently only $1.99 for Kindle on Amazon (not an endorsement, just a fact), so I picked it up.

It’s a solid debut novel about a young woman, Daisy, diagnosed with terminal cancer. This Type A gal lives, and apparently plans to die, by her to-do lists. She throws herself into finding her husband a replacement wife for when she’s gone, feeling that the poor guy will be lost without someone to pick up his stinky socks and force him to eat more than cereal. While it gives her a purpose and structure to her suddenly aimless days as she faces the reality of life on a deadline that doesn’t include finishing her graduate degree, launching a career, fixing up her old home or having a family, she soon learns she might not be able to live with the repercussions of this decision.

It was a sad, oftentimes funny, interesting read and I enjoyed it.

Until the day after I finished it.

That following day, a former colleague announced that her breast cancer had returned. To her brain, lungs, liver, lymph nodes. She’s the same age as me. She has two young boys. She’s already endured this fight once before. And it all sounded too familiar to the book (relapse, spread) and sucked the air out of my “enjoyment” of it. Cancer is all too real. All too present in the lives of loved ones that I just couldn’t truly process my feelings about this story anymore. Particularly when her announcement came the same day another friend got the good news that her 8 year old’s routine MRI came back clean after fighting brain cancer multiple times in his short life.

Cancer is evil and random and cruel. It gives and it takes. It shape shifts and challenges and terrifies.

And, unfortunately, cancer is a reality that we all live with. No one is untouched. We all know someone. Lost someone. There’s no escaping it. Even in the pages of a book.

But in the pages of a book is where we deal. And sometimes laughing and crying about the lack of control we have on our lives as we live them not to mention our lives after we leave them behind through the eyes of a non-real-life person is just what the doctor ordered.

Bottom line? I think the book is a good read, I’d even go so far as recommend it as a good beach read (as strange as that feels to type). It just happened that the timing was off for me, souring my endorsement, censoring my pithy review. It’s one thing to read a book about a woman dying from cancer and “like” it, and another to turn around and see a real, flesh and blood woman announce to the world that she is reentering the ring for another fight.

Cancer sucks.

I’d give this one a 3.5 out of 5.

Next up, At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen.

High Heeled Mama Reads: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is a story of a young Nigerian girl emigrating to the United States for a university education and the promise of a better life.

Americanah is a love story of two young lovers separated by distance, pursuing their dreams however they can until disillusionment with the results brings them face-to-face again to face their old and future feelings.

Americanah is a story about race in America. In Britain. In Nigeria.

Americanah is a Wizard of Oz story about how you don’t always need to go over the rainbow to find what you want, sometimes you need to simply recognize the desires inside you and have the strength to make them so despite the cultural, familial and familiar obligations that surround you.

Americanah is a story about place. A story where place is more a character than a setting.

Americanah is the type of story that you can’t put in a box. The book’s brilliance lies in its ability to tell a story about race, globalization, global tensions, discrimination, immigration, academic life, materialism as success and self discovery through the story of two young Nigerians. At the outset, they are young and in love and hungry for life beyond their school and family. But somewhere along the lines, their actions to seek out a better future, still put them on paths to adult mediocrity. Dreams are muddled, confused, waylaid. Ethics are compromised in order to stay the course. Their love for each other becomes just another part of a past that must be compartmentalized, packed away, in order to focus on the more urgent needs of the now.

Americanah is about voice. Reading this novel this winter while the country seems to be shining a light on the fact that the Civil Rights Movement and the election of the first black president did not solve all the country’s institutionalized racism, not to mention the personalized racism, was particularly poignant. Ifemelu, the young woman in the story, starts a blog to comment on race in America. I found her posts to be fascinating, eye opening and brilliant. I found myself wishing it were real so I could hop online and read them all up. Alas, fiction.

What I loved nearly as much as the book was finding Adiche’s TED talk afterwards about the danger of single story. The point being that her work no more defines Nigeria or Nigerians as American Psycho defines all young adult males (her example). Just as her fictional character’s experiences and blog are only an individual’s perspective, we must open our eyes to all that we can to find empathy and understanding.

I found this idea of a single story to be so personally relevant – we are all more than mothers or wives or sisters or workers. We are a culmination of roles and passions and cultures and childhood experiences and tastes. I think this single story concept defines the very reason why the mommy wars perpetuate – the word mother means something to me and something different to you and something absolutely opposite to that lady over there. Yet, for some reason, many of us seek to put motherhood in a box that means all one thing or another and any mother not fitting in the box provided is therefore doing it wrong. We can’t fall prey to the single story. There are many stories, many experiences, many challenges all leading to truths. Yes. Plural. My truth and your truth are both valid even if sometimes contradictory. Accepting the multitude of truths and stories is the only way we can all move forward to improve our communities, families and selves.

In a nutshell: Read the book. Listen to the talk. Then, go forth and find more stories.

I give this book 4.5 out of 5.

 

Have you read Americanah? What were your thoughts? Share them in the comments.

Coming up, Before I Go by Colleen Oakley and At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen.

Faces of a Child

When the first born, T, was an infant, I stared at his little mug for hours. Nursing. Napping. Strolling. Playing. Really. Whatever he was doing, I was watching. That smile? Total gas. That perplexed look? Definitely spit up coming. That adorable pensive face? Oh, well, that’s his little boy face.

Every so often, T would give us this look that I would gasp at and clutch my metaphorical pearls. I just knew that was what my baby, my darling, chunky-cheeked, goofy-smiled baby would look like as a little boy when he’d shucked the chubby skin of infancy and toddlerhood. I would point at pictures and label them to the hubby: “There. Little boy face.”

And damn if I wasn’t right. Because here he is. In front of me now. All boy. All that look.

Part of me was pleased as punch to be right about something. To have that motherly instinct so early prove correct. And not about the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as they cruised along the coffee table only to bash their face into the corner of the sofa and bawl for the next 15 minutes. But about something good. Something sweet. Something I just felt in my bones was right.

Then today. Oh, today. Today, I took my 8 year old big boy shopping for a suit for his upcoming First Communion. Buttering him up with frozen yogurt, off we went to take advantage of the season’s Easter dress-up sales. And he was surprisingly helpful at picking out what he wanted and then I forced him into the fitting room to ensure a good fit on my skinny minny little man. And there it was. In a tie and glasses and the pull of a cuff as he shrugged on that jacket. A face. Not the little boy face anymore, but the grown-up man face. In the mirror of a department store, in pants that need a belt to stay on his nonexistent hips, in a tie he picked by himself, I saw a new future.

I wasn’t ready. I’m still not ready as I type this, acknowledging the momentousness that occurred in between scuffed walls, on well worn brown carpet strewn with the detritus of dress shirt packaging. I know it’s a long way off. I know I have no reason to worry and every fart joke to still look forward to. But glimpses of the future. This big, independent future where I am probably not solving problems with frozen yogurt or needed to help prepare for anything? Not ready for it.

And so I become the keeper of the faces. The serious baby face. The joy filled toddler face. The no teeth first grade face. The awkward big toothed second grader face. The sad faces. The excited faces. The relieved faces. The I’m-so-glad-you’re-here faces. And every face that is in between. Someday my son will gaze at his own little one’s face with wonder and name what he sees in this new little being. I will join him and smile, knowing that I, too, see faces. Faces of the past. Faces of babies and toddlers and little boys and men-to-be that have become.

Maybe then I will be ready to accept the future faces. But I doubt it.

At Peace with Priorities. This Week.

There hasn’t been any writing this week. There will probably not be any writing next week, either. Normally, I’d be twitchy. And part of me is. But part of me is okay with it. Because it’s spring. Or because there isn’t really an alternative. Or because I’m terrified of where I am in the work in progress and fear I’m working up to an “eh” moment in the manuscript. Or all of the above.

The fact is, this week has been filled with tasks. Teacher appreciation errands to run. Easter Egg baskets to fill. Baseball games. A field trip I swore I would not volunteer for but did anyway (really, Monica, the zoo? Pray for me, people. Pray hard.). Class Easter parties at preschool. An author lecture. A home renovation project we’re undertaking. The hubby’s car broke down. And it’s only Tuesday. Next week is spring break. Another week filled with two kids and endless time and boundless energy.

After a minor anxiety moment writing out my to do list yesterday morning, I’ve let it go. Maybe it was yoga. Or maybe it was planning a small family road trip to somewhere new for part of the break. Or, gasp, maybe I’m finally learning. I’m learning that my writing and my kids are not competing forces, although it feels that way on a daily basis. I’m learning that as much as I need to respect my writing time, I also need to respect my life. And my life is messy and full and sometimes lands decidedly heavy on the side of kid and school commitments. It doesn’t mean that my writing isn’t important, it just means that in that moment, it’s not the top priority. There will be more moments.

They will only be this age once. They will only have one more Easter Egg hunt at this preschool. I may not always have the opportunity to attend field trips. I won’t always be the room mom for this class. The weather won’t always be this beautiful. They might not always want to play catch with their mom.

Be where your feet are. Best piece of advice I ever got. Hardest to follow. But this week, I’m staying grounded.

“Let’s go for a run,” the five year old announced this afternoon out of the blue. He’s never made this request before. The hubby and I don’t “run.” Not that we can’t, it’s just not our thing.

“Okay.”

And so we did. We hit the street, running up one cul-de-sac and back down. It wasn’t terribly far. It didn’t take too long. It put a smile on both our faces.

“I want you to swing with me,” the five year old stated after our run.

“Okay.” Up and down we went, my stomach not handling the pendulum motion as well as it once did. And then I let go and sailed out of the swing, jumping from the moving swing, landing on the bark mulch several feet away. The 5 year old laughed and complimented my jump. Then we played tag and waited for the school bus to deliver his big brother home.

I wasn’t writing. And yet I was. Because here. Now. This moment. Because of that moment.

Letting go, I’m learning, might be the most effective way of holding tight. Holding tight to their childhoods by making memories with them during the in between. Holding tight to the work in progress by loosening my mind to find it. Holding tight to my marriage by trust falling into its safety when the going gets overbooked.

So I may not be writing in the work in progress as much as I’d like this week, but I’m writing in my book of life. And, probably more importantly, writing in my kids’ books. And those are the ultimate works in progress.

Three Hours

Three hours.

Every weekday I drop the little dude off at preschool, come home and have three hours before pick-up. Three hours to spend focused on those adult-only tasks that are done so much more productively without interruption or carousing  children running about the house. Three hours for writing. Three hours to take care of busy work. Three hours for a kid-free grocery stop. Three hours for neighborhood committee work. Three hours for school volunteer tasks. Three hours for errands. Three hours to start a load of laundry. Three hours to wash dishes (damn the broken dishwasher). Three hours to straighten up. Three hours to email a friend. Three hours to schedule appointments. Three hours to get to those appointments. Three hours for quiet.

Three hours.

If only one of those tasks were on the docket for any given day, three hours could be ample. But let’s face it. Who in this non-stop world of life, not to mention parenting, has only one task on their to-do list? Inevitably, I am forced to choose. Forced to squeeze, manipulate, compromise.

Typically, I block out writing time. I may run a quick errand on my way back after carpool drop off, but I try to treat my writing time as sacrosanct. The errands book end the writing time. The tough days are when I can’t do that. When an errand takes longer than a quick stop. When planning for a neighborhood event takes more than just sending an email. When volunteering and morning dinner prep because of a late afternoon baseball game collide.

Three hours.

I used to think that I needed to be in the right mood to write. The “write mood,” you might say. If the “write mood” wasn’t available, the words weren’t either. I’m not sure what the “write mood” is anymore, other than a procrastination and avoidance technique. I will always be too tired or too hungry or too distracted. There is no perfect storm that allows the muse to appear, holding your mind and fingertips in creative ecstasy so that the words just flow and the story just builds and the brilliance descends onto the page. There is no music or candle or writing position that will make me a better writer. Only the writing. And so I have learned that the only true muse is my ass. And a chair. And putting the two together. Once they are connected, creativity is available. You can’t force creativity, they say. Well, sometimes you just don’t have a choice. You practice it by just doing it until finally your creative muscle is like any other and responds more willingly, more eagerly and with more strength each time.

Three hours.

I don’t have time for perfection. I don’t have time for inspiration. I only have time for writing. For sitting down. For dedicating. For forced work. Today, I had 50 minutes. That’s it. And I knew it was the only dedicated time I’d have. So I sat down. And I hated it. I didn’t want to. I tried Facebook and Twitter for a few minutes before I turned them off. Before I forced my ass into the chair and my fingers to the keys. It wasn’t pretty at first. There was a graph that was instantly deleted. A mental reboot. Although I was short of a typical productive word count day, what I wrote wasn’t half bad. It was progress. It was another step forward on the path to completed manuscript. It was a step forward in a character’s evolution. It was a step that wouldn’t have been made if I’d waited. For the muse. For inspiration. For time.

Three hours.

Summer vacation is looming in my peripheral vision. With no paying job to help supplement our income, we’ve decided to go summer camp free. The boys aren’t thrilled, but I know it will still be a fun and lazy and adventurous summer filled with pool time and hikes and parks and movies and Legos and neighborhood football games. What scares me is three hours. Where today I look at three available hours to squeeze in carpool volunteer duties, an errand, yoga and 50 minutes of writing as not much time, I see three hours on a summer as a luxury I can’t afford. Literally and figuratively.

So I’m practicing. Practicing to force the work. Practicing working in strange conditions. Right now I’m writing this like my keyboard is on fire while the 5 year old watches a post-picnic-in-the-park-endless-game-of-tag-playdate and just before the 8 year old’s bus completes afternoon dropoff. I could be reading a magazine or getting those nasty baseball pants out of my sink and into the washing machine or working on background for a possible upcoming project, but instead, I’m practicing. Practicing writing under pressure. A different kind of pressure. A noisy kids, spontaneous availability pressure. Can I write in the park while they are playing? Can I write while they play Legos? Can I write during screen time? Can I write at night (trust me, I’ve tried this one over and over and it never works but perhaps I need to try again)?

Three hours.

Fitting in time for our passions shouldn’t be a luxury, but as a parent, I understand that sometimes it is. Particularly when I have chosen a path that doesn’t pay immediately and therefore requires certain responsibilities and sacrifices. The fact is that I am the at home parent. I am the designated chauffeur, cook, nurse, teacher and playmate. I am also a wife and a friend and a thinker and a reader.

I’m not sure if I’m a believer in “making time.” I think that concept insinuates too much, requires us to take on too much, to stay up too late, to multitask to the point we are merely competent instead of excellent. I think we have time already. I think we need to find time. Time we’re simply using in other ways or afraid to use for our passion purpose. Time we think isn’t appropriate for the muse. Right now I have three hours to spend on whatever I decide. Three hours to work, whether on my manuscript or on our family life. This summer, I may have three minutes. The big question will be how I decide to spend it.

Lessons from a Leprechaun

Author’s Note: Below is an essay I wrote this past fall as part of a contest I didn’t win. So it may not be award winning writing, but it seems pertinent to publish today. And so I share it with you. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. May you find your own pot of gold.

My second grade teacher was Mrs. Morrison. She was the teacher the first graders began whispering about in May and feared being assigned without really knowing or understanding why. Strict. Mean. Hard. That was the extent of the vocabulary available to me and my seven-year-old peers to describe her. Words that struck a chord of discontent and unease without real fact upon which to base them – par for the course of the younger elementary school set who still asked their parents to check under the bed for monsters (pointing finger at self).

I’m not sure what my initial reaction was to Mrs. Morrison on the first day of school in 1983. I do know that she was an elfin woman, short in stature with close-cropped black hair and reading glasses that she wore on a chain around her neck. I’m not sure why she needed the chain since I can’t picture her without those half-mooned glasses perched on the end of her nose, eyebrows raised as she peered over their rims waiting at the blackboard for your answer. She had a mesmerizing reading voice, clear and steady and thick; never scratchy or watery or too high. She ran a tight ship, but it was easy to stay on her good side. She demanded the best of her students and, on most occasions, received it. She was tough (now as the parent of an eight-year-old second grade boy myself, I understand why) and, although it wasn’t the popular opinion, I loved her.

We were given story prompts often that year, the barebones beginnings to practice our grammar, handwriting and knowledge of story basics. Only one prompt assignment stands out, however, sparklingly detailed in my mind’s eye through a haze of generic second grade memories. It was March, approaching St. Patrick’s Day. I’m sure our days had been spent discussing the science behind rainbows, sorting “gold” coins in math and learning about Irish culture, although I honestly don’t recall. What I do remember is the story prompt:

“One day, while walking in the woods behind my house, I thought I saw a tiny little man…”

Leprechauns and St. Patrick’s Day did not particularly resonate with me. I remember that panicky feeling of the blank page in front of me, of students in the desks next to me scribbling out sentences with ease, the fear tickling my scalp that I had nothing to say. Finally I put pencil to paper and simply started writing: “He looked like a leprechaun. He talked like a leprechaun. He was a leprechaun!” The act of starting opened the door. I moved my protagonist through a relatively raucous encounter with an extremely large leprechaun family, forcing her to face sure and dire consequences when her parents found out about the mayhem these little green creatures had caused in their home but then wrapping it all up at the bottom of the page in a joyful ending with the leprechauns discarding their mischievous ways to put the house aright and share their gold at the end of the rainbow with the protagonist and her family.

Mrs. Morrison lauded this small little sliver of amateur story telling. I’m sure smiley faces and gold stars were involved. I was so proud of my effort and subsequent praise from such a tough teacher that I sent a copy of the story – in a large, stamped envelope as these were the days before email and attachments – to my English teacher aunt. In return, she’d typed it up on her word processor, printed it in italics with justified margins and sent it back to me framed in a bright sunshine gold colored mat with a note congratulating me on what an excellent story I had written. That story hung on my bedroom wall next to the door so that I saw it every time I left my room. It remained there until my parents moved out of my childhood home two decades later.

Something about that experience sparked a tiny ember for me. A small piece of my soul had been exposed and it felt good to let the sun shine on it. A secret desire to be a writer of the books I adored and devoured as a reader began to take root in that small glow. But for some reason, I didn’t share it. Not publicly. Not in reality. Later, in middle school, I attended the Duke Young Writer’s Camp and adored every minute. I developed a creative writing independent study for myself in high school and worked on the literary magazine. But when push came to college, I opted for practical. I graduated with a degree from the Journalism School. It was writing. It paid the bills. It seemed a perfect match.

And so a career in public relations was launched. And while riding the Metro to work in Washington, D.C., I scribbled in a journal. I bought books filled with writing prompts and filled pages with random observations on my grandmother’s hands or the smell of fear or my first memory. I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Stephen King’s On Writing, Joyce Carol Oates’ The Faith of a Writer for inspiration. I secretly fed my pent up desires at night while toiling away at AP-style press releases by day. A move to Atlanta so my husband could attend grad school left me hungry for my own outlet and an opportunity to meet people. I took creative writing courses at the Margaret Mitchell House. I fanned the flame. I took my writing more seriously, but still not seriously enough. Then I had babies.

Having children illuminated my own life like a stage spotlight with no escape from its harsh reality. My children inspire me to be the best mother I can be, to be a better person, to live my true life as an example of the life I wish for them – a life of sincerity, generosity, hope, passion, love and fulfillment. I decided perhaps it was time to walk the walk. It was time to recognize and fertilize the tiny plant struggling inside. It was time to focus more on writing. I spoke out into the universe that I wanted to try my hand at a freelance writing career, something manageable with two young boys underfoot. Imagine my surprise when it was my friend, Kristine, and not the universe that answered.

Her husband’s start-up was in need of some public relations assistance. One meeting with her charismatic husband/CEO and I was sold. I wanted in. This was an exciting new business. One I understood and felt good about promoting. The schedule would be flexible, part time, family-friendly. It included a steady paycheck and screamed practical (that dastardly word again).

I had a blast at this job. It was fun, challenging, satisfying. Then, this past spring, after two and a half years, my contract was terminated.

After losing the security of a day-to-day job and taking the inevitable moment for self-reflection and consideration of next steps, I realized I didn’t want to look for another public relations job. I didn’t want to write words that needed massaging and tweaking and rearranging to better fit a brand message. I didn’t want to write quotes and talking points and words for others. I wanted to say things. I wanted a creative life. I wanted impracticality for a change. I wanted leprechauns.

After a summer of fun with my now eight and four year old boys, I am rededicated. I am taking the risk. I am telling myself that I am a writer. And that decision is filled with all the same warm joy I felt when I hung that silly story on my wall.

As an eight-year-old second grader, my heart of hearts decided I was a writer. It took the rest of me 30 additional years to finally believe it.