A letter to all of you (from people who kind of know me to those who love me wholeheartedly)

Dear Everyone,
  Tomorrow I defend my doctoral dissertation.  My study, which is about the impact of sexual health education for people with disabilities, began as a spark of an idea a few years ago when I was running the youth program at IndependenceFirst and teaching accessible sexual health education.  I think it began even before that when I walked into a special education classroom as a substitute teacher for MPS in 1998 and realized there was such a thing as a calling.
  Since that time, I've worked with, advocated for and befriended people with disabilities, gave birth to my son Coen, lost the hearing in my left ear due to a tumor, married Tad (who is my soulmate--I believe in that too), got a master's degree as a Trinity Fellow at Marquette University, began working at IndpendenceFirst where I grew up as a professional and a person, settling into the work I do now, had a miscarriage, bought a house on 55th street and grew my community, found Highland Community School and grew my community more, gave birth to my daughter Lucy, saw my mom fight through a hat-trick of cancer, found a really great therapist, got a hearing aid, and traveled the country and the world in my service and work.  Three years ago, I left the  job I loved to pursue a life long dream of getting a PhD and becoming a professor.
   It was scary and difficult and exhausting and exhilarating and empowering as an experience.  I watched my kids struggle with my absences, saw my husband bravely return to his writing career to care for his physical, mental and spiritual health, lived on the tiniest income, drove to Madison and back countless times, slept on a friend's couch many nights a week, and wrote and read and researched and passed preliminary examinations.  I did all this with perseverance and hard work and a lot of energy. But I also did it with privilege--privilege of wonderful parents, the friendship of my sister, lots of other friendships, the privilege of finding the right person to fall in love with and create other people, and my opportunities for education throughout my life, the privilege of the color of my skin, the fortune of (mostly) good health, the travel I've been allowed to do, and the people who supported me, mentored me and held me up. These past three years, pushed forward with this privilege, and doing a little good work ;), I taught and learned and grew... and tomorrow I finish.
   I guess what I'm saying here is thank you. Thank you if you're reading this and you are my friend, or someone who's supported me. Thank you if you were part of this journey of mine in any way at all. Thank you if you fed my kids or Tad during this time. Thank you if I stayed at your house, or walked with you, had coffee or lunch with you, or called you/or you called me.  I'm also saying this: If you have a dream, go get it!  If you need help, let people know. They will help.  Reach out.  Reach in.
   In fall I get to start working as professor of rehabilitation counseling and mental health counseling back at Marquette.  I hope that I serve my students with integrity and authenticity. I hope that I remember to check my privilege and that people will remind me when I don't.  I am so happy that I got to reach this goal (almost...think of me tomorrow!) and that I get to serve Milwaukee, my community, and folks with disabilities. 
Love to you all,
Alie
 
 

Elderly

So, I took the badger bus to Madison this week. In fact, I'm on it as I write this. (Thanks, free wi-fi)
The reason I took the bus?
Sciatica.
Yep. My lower back hurts so much, with shooting pain down my right leg, I have to get into child's pose every time I'm standing for more than 15 minutes. Hope you don't mind, professors, when I get up to do that in the middle of your lectures. Yep. Just what I need. Another reason to look weirder than I already do.
Well, that's what happens, I guess, when you're suddenly sitting constantly. Sitting in the car to Madison and back, sitting in class, sitting to work on papers and presentations....and of course being the most elderly student in my cohort. Older than some of my professors even.
Now.
I've never been one to get hung up on age. I'll tell you how old I am.
41.
Or am I 42?
What's 2017 minus 1975?
42. (Impressive, huh? I'm doing well in stats.)
So I'll be 42 this year.
So what!  I can't help the year I was born. Neither can you!
But this back pain and how long it's taking me to get back (back! ha!) on my feet out of child's pose is...
Bringing
Me
Down.

But, back to the bus.
Listening to music while gazing out the window at farms... it's reminding me of being on the bus in Estonia. (MY friend Harald deduced, of our two years in Estonia, we spent three full months aboard a bus.)
Which makes me think.
Well.. I've needed all 41 years and 11 months to get where I am now.
And I am bringing all that time with me...to my papers and presentations...to my presence in this program...my work and life and adventure experience. I couldn't be here...who I am...without it.
Even from on the dusty bus floor here in child's pose.
That's right. Nothing to see here.
Full circle, people.  Full circle.

Grad school, ice cream and belonging.

I just returned from the conference of the National Council of Rehabilitation Educators in sunny Anaheim, California.  Going back to school after 14 years of work in your field is weird.  Going back to school and being well older than all of your classmates and even some of your professors is weirder.  But....I've always been a person who doesn't feel my age and so.
And so.

But walking up to the conference venue, after having spent years at conferences where everyone knew who I was...people grabbing me in for conversations and questions, advice and assistance in sessions...  It got comfy.  So walking up to the conference venue...not knowing anyone gathered around...  I felt my stomach clench.

Those of you who know me know I am loud and expressive, glad to be the center of attention.  But that's when I know the people around me.  When I show up and know no one..I get a little terrified.  I've been known to hide in the bathroom, arriving before friends at a gathering or a party, texting them to tell me when they get there so I can come out.

Walking up to the conference venue, I considered hiding in the bathroom for a split second.

and then.

"Hey! Where are you from?"

Immediately two women began to talk to me, ask me questions.  That happened throughout the entire conference; everyone was friendly, welcoming, and open.  And I thought.  What a wonderful new community I've joined.

And then I saw them--my cohort and those a year ahead of me, a ring of faces that I knew. And they called me over and looked glad to see me and I felt like I belonged.  I think, sometimes, that's the most important feeling we can have.

And in the evening, I snuck away with my friend and we got ice cream together, and talked about the funny feeling and awkwardness of not knowing people.

And I'm so glad I went.

So, friends, when you are at a conference or a party or a gathering of some kind, and if you see someone standing alone, looking like they  might go hide in the bathroom... Or perhaps someone who has a better game face than I..perhaps they're studying their conference agenda or cell phone, reach out.  Ask them where they're from.   Help them feel like they belong.

Grad school is challenging, but I am in love with the way my brain feels like its growing. And its made all the better, all the easier, by having people to go sneak away for ice cream with.  And people who open their circle and invite you in, telling you...

You belong.

Thoughts on time

Do you ever think about time? The way it works? The way it folds around us, falls behind us, stretches out before us in unimaginable length?

I keep a book journal. I started it at my husband's encouragement because I'm a "voracious reader"...I gulp down books like Gatorade at the end of a marathon...  And then I say, "I just read the greatest book!" And the person to whom I'm talking says, "Oh? What was it about?" And then I'm like, "Ummmmm...."  So now I keep a book journal and I write down the date I started, the date I finished and quotes from the books I read that jump out at me, that I don't want to forget.

So this morning, I finished a book: "Today will be different" by Maria Semple.  And wrote today's date in my book journal along with the book I am starting today: "The atomic weight of love" by Elizabeth Church.  And I thought...

Anything could happen between now and the time I finish this book.....

Somehow the expanse of time occurred to me as I wrote down a simple date and title and author.  Today is April 14th, 2017.  Today I start a new book. I will heat up leftover stir fry for dinner. I'll drink some coffee.  I'll look at my children who lay sprawled on my bed, even as I type this, waiting to have my attention...or a turn at my computer...hard to tell which.  And in a week or so, I'll write a new date down when I finish this book with the brick red hardcover.

What will have happened between now and then?   

Time just stretches out and who knows what will fill it...

Sometimes when I'm walking, I imagine myself at 21 or 26 and I pretend I'm getting the opportunity to see what my life is like in the future.

Here you are at 41, I say to myself.  And I look at my reflection in the mirror, at my surroundings, imagining realizing I'm in school now getting a PhD, hearing stories about my career, serving youth with disabilities.  And I come to my house and with anticipation, open the door.  Me at 26 is wondering: What will I find inside my life?

 And I'm always so grateful for what I find there.  And me at 26 zips back into my 41 year old self.  And I look up now as Tad walks in the room to ask what I'm typing, my kids are rolling around having a ridiculous argument on my bed.  It's a nice exercise in gratitude.

I wonder what I might remember about this time, when I'm 57 or 64 and looking back again and looking forward.  I wonder by then if I'll be better at staying in one place....  It's funny to imagine that time out there, just waiting for me.  However many books I read later. Stretching out and expanding and contracting.  Waiting to be reached only to be behind me again.

Adventures in statistics

Let me start by acknowledging how long it has been since last I blogged.  I have embarked upon, as you might know, a doctoral program in rehabilitation counselor education.  I've been busy, to say the least.  Anyway.  As a future educator and researcher I must, of course, take statistics.

Now. Statistics does not come easy to me.  I have to think in such a way that I can actually feel my brain.

So I have this statistics instructor who is really kind and earnest in his teaching, but also very mathematical and statistical minded...so he acknowledges that the mushy stuff doesn't come naturally to him.  One day in class he was openly talking to us about how he was concerned that he wasn't conveying the information to us in a helpful way. He was being vulnerable. He was being honest.  After he spoke, there was a moment of silence.

And then I leaned over to grab a pencil, somehow activating my phone, sitting on the chair under my leg.

A moment of silence after our teacher's honesty. And then.

The google lady:

"IF YOU SAID SOMETHING, I DIDN'T HEAR WHAT IT WAS."

Loud and clear as day.  Then another silence, a burst of laughter from the class.

Sorry.

So yesterday in class, we learned a new method of statistics.  It is called the Bonferroni method and allows the researcher to compare multiple means, measuring between groups. As our instructor talked through the method, my eyes widened in realization.  You see, I had looked ahead at our assignment for the weekend and it looked like this:

See where it says "substitute 'Bonferonni' for 'Tukey'"?

Well, I read it before class and thought that "Tukey" actually said "Turkey"

Tukey is, apparently, another statistical method.

But again, I thought it said 'Turkey'. So I assumed (naturally) that Bonfernonni was some kind of sausage.

And I was wondering....

Why are we doing a research assignment comparing turkey to some sort of Italian sausage?

Yep.

Statistics does not come easy.

Where it's at. And embarassing facts about me.

Sometimes my daughter gets crazy mad at me.  And it's usually because she's talking to me and my mind is somewhere else.  

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the feeling that I'm missing out on something.  That there's something going on that I've not been invited to and that by missing out on all the fun, people are forgetting I exist.

That's a real truth about me. And it's weird and it's sort of embarassing.  Because, as my therapist likes to remind me, everything isn't all about me.

When two people get together and don't invite me, it actually has NOTHING. TO DO. With me.

Can you believe that? There are times when people aren't thinking about me at all!  Does that mean I'm forgotten? That I'm not important? That I don't exist?

No!

So, when I'm so caught up in worrying about that, the truth is, I'm not present in my own life, with the people who happen to be right in front of me. Like my daughter. Trying to tell me a story and I am just floating away, wondering what might be happening somewhere else that I am missing out on.

Good gravy.

Sometimes I can feel it...me floating above myself wondering what else there is...  me glazing over... not present.  And then I realize it and it's almost as if I can feel my spirit sucked back into my body and there I am, right behind my own eyes.

And it's glorious. 

There's green grass and new porch chairs and growing things and the beautiful brown eyes of my daughter...there with me at that moment telling me a story.  THAT is my moment. THAT is my right now.  I need to get back to that far more often.  Don't we all?

Sometimes at night, I put my book down and start mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. Fucking Facebook.  Just there to remind you of things that you aren't doing.  Pictures you're not in.  Experiences you aren't currently having.  Things that look all shiny and great and amazing, without the gritty stuff.  The real stuff.  Facebook, while useful for staying in contact with people far away, with being in the know about upcoming events and now....things you can buy (what?), is just packaged, shelf-ready, buffed and shined up life.  Real, but not.  And anyway, it certainly isn't where you are right now, is it? 

So right now I'm going to post this so people can read it.  To Facebook of course.  And then later I'll check to see if anyone did.  But in between, I'm going to try and suck my spirit back into my body, take a walk and really see what's in front of me and be where I am.

Presence.

It's where it's at.

So why is it so hard to be in it sometimes?

Sometimes you just have to shake it up.

So this fall, I'm leaving the job I've been at for the past twelve years.  I'm leaving this job and the salary and security that goes along with it and going back to school.
Why?
Sometimes you just have to shake it up, is how I figure.

I have shaken it up in my life two times in a big way and both of them led me to amazing places, people and experiences.  I think always know it's time to shake it up when I get too comfortable. 

Well.

This time I got so comfortable being comfortable that I forgot to shake it up until two things happened.
1. Tad reminded me that it's time.
2. I got uncomfortable.

So. I think I've known for a long time that it was time to shake it up again...so here we go.

The first time I shook it up was when I left home, at the tender(ish) age of 18 to go to college.  I walked around whitewater with a long hippy skirt and a ministry t-shirt and knock-off birkenstocks and smoked cigarettes.  I pretended I was cool until I realized it was a lot cooler just to be me.  I studied hard and found out that I was actually pretty good at school, contrary to what my high school experience told me.  I didn't call home for a month just to prove to myself that I didn't need to.  That shake up left me stronger, braver and smarter than I was before it started.

The second time was when I left for the Peace Corps.  I was having such a good time in my easy job, my house full of parties and drinking and all-hours fun.  And I realized.  This isn't doing anything for my growth. I better get out of here and get uncomfortable.  So I moved to Estonia for two years. And I made friends and had experiences that changed my life entirely.  I grew inside like a wild crawling vine.

Now.

Here's shake up number three.  I feel pretty ready.

I love to imagine future me, remembering this limbo period, before I started... knowing what I will know then.

 

Circa shake up #1, 1993

Shake up #2, 2000

AND shake up #3, 20

Mamo-mamo-mamogram!

Yesterday I had my first mammogram.  Being excited about female-based rights of passage (getting your first period, buying your first bra, your first mammogram, your first time not apologizing to someone at a picnic that it's raining...) I felt a little celebratory.

All in all, it was really not a big-deal experience (she says blissfully unknowing, whilst the people at the breast center get ready to pick up the phone to call her back and tell her to come in for more tests or a biopsy or something!)

So the mammogram technician was really nice. She thought it was cute that I was going out to dinner with some friends right afterwards to celebrate.  I approached the giant machine, my eyebrow raised.  How am I going to.. I was thinking until she said "It lowers down."  Which I was thankful about, worried I was going to have to haul my endowments onto the table a good half foot out of my reach!

After she took the third picture, she goes, "Okay, let's do that one over.  You had a big chunk of arm fat stuck in that one."

WHAT?!

Big chunk of arm fat?

I mean, who says that to someone?

I laughed, throwing back my head like Julie Andrews.  A little arm fat never bothered me!  I'm SO beyond arm fat.

Seriously though.  Can't she have come up with some euphemistic way to say it?

Like: Let's do that one again. I had your positioned wrong.  OR....  Oh let me take this picture over. You're so beautiful, it confused the machine!

I mean for real. What if I were totally sensitive about my arm fat? I could have been sent into a downward spiral of poor body image!  But lucky for her...and me...I'm not.

The other day when I was trying on swimsuits, my sweet daughter, watching me change, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror, said, "Mom. Why am I so skinny?"

Whatever people.

Ah, but the first mammogram is done and out of the way. I walked out with a smile on my face and me and my arm fat met some friends for tacos!

This is what I'm dealing with.

 Here is a note I wrote to my children one morning when I left for work before they woke. 

I was letting Coen know that he had his math homework to do--a computer program called ALEKS.  Sometimes he does it right when he gets home, to get it over with. Sometimes he likes to wait and do it in the kitchen amid the smells of my cooking, talking to me between problems. 

He doesn't love doing it, but he takes responsibility for it.  Sometimes I think he does it just to please me....

Now, when he was in first grade, he had math worksheets he had to bring home and do occasionally.  I would sit with him and often he would cry in frustration and I would do my best to help, counting on my fingers beneath the table.

Once, on a particularly frustrating night of homework doing, Tad took Coen out behind the garage with his worksheets and a pack of matches and together they burned it. I imagine Coen smiling with glee like a maniac and Tad giving him a conspirator's smile, his eyes sparkling.  The homework going up in smoke, ember and flame in the dark alleyway.  A father/son act of defiance.

Coen was bursting to tell me when he came in. 

"You BURNED it?!" I asked incredulously.  Then to Tad, "How is this HELPING?"

So here, next to my note is the one Tad wrote. Another act of defiance. 

So there we are. Me, helping Coen with homework, making sure he does it.  Tad telling Coen it isn't necessary.  And somehow we make it work.  I hope he's learning to work with his community and question authority all at once. 

But you see..this is what I'm dealing with...a note next to mine, poking fun of the system I'm trying to figure how to help my kid into...  nighttime sky and secret fractions into ashes, sparking into the night. 

Ah well...what an interesting world my children are growing up in....

Ms. Cool.

Oh to be super cool and composed.  To not allow my emotions to betray me.  

Alas.

I am a person who's every emotion shows on her face.  I do not have a poker face. In a game of poker, I have a full house face and a flush face, and a face for whatever it's called when your cards are no good.  Yesterday one of my friends was talking about how hard it is to be vulnerable and I said, "Unless you're me.  Then you just fly your blimp over the city with today's specials and a big sign that says LOVE ME!"

Yesterday, I was frustrated with Tad.  As you might know if you've read this blog before... Tad and I are on quite different ends of the introvert/extrovert spectrum...

And so I am constantly happy to be surrounded by him (and anyone else that haps by), whilst occasionally, he simply needs some time to be inward, alone and quiet.  So I find myself in the position of being in the same house with someone who isn't totally available to me.  When this happens, I think to myself: I got this. I can do my own thing. Leave him alone. No problem.  Picture me here wearing sunglasses and a beret, walking around snapping my fingers totally nonchalantly. It's cool. It's casual.  Whatevs.  

And yet.

He walks past me and I want to scream: PAY ATTENTION TO ME! Yeah, I'm just an open faced sandwich and that's all there is too it.  Look at me... a melty, gooey mess of cheese and pickles and a grand desire to be loved that I can't really hide.  

So, I went to pick the kids up from school and I saw Tad out of the corner of my eye on the playground.  And I thought, I'm just going to ignore him.  So I walked past and didn't look his way. Though I could see him approaching out the corner of my eye.

"Hey Ms. Cool." He said.

Dammit.

He hugged me and he acknowledged, in the words only Tad can, that he's been a bit absent.  So I hugged him back, went out to the car with the kids and quickly pulled the two page note I'd written him off his car seat.  We'd talk about all that later.

Yeah. I'm not cool. But that's okay.  I think I'd rather be a blimp-flying-open-faced sandwich and ME than try to be something I'm not.

This is me, trying to take a selfie with Poseidon. Decidedly uncool.

What we believe...

I know we all believe in different things, beings, spirits.

But maybe if you look closer, we all believe in the same things.

I don't have a religion, but I have faith. I don't have a church but I have spirituality.  I believe in a higher power some call God, some call Gods and Goddesses, some call self, some call the Universe, Divine Creation, all those names, all those things.

I believe in kindness.

I believe in love.

I believe in the existence of an energy all around us that is far more than what we can see and touch with our hands and our mouths, more than what we can taste and smell and even see with our eyes in our heads or our brains' sensations of the world around.

Sometimes I ask for things, as I used to ask God when I was a catholic girl on my knees, my red bedroom carpet, burning under my skin.  Sometimes I don't ask but somehow ask anyway through frustration or anger or plain old joyfulness.  Sometimes I see someone passing by and I think I know what they need and try to give it.   The Universe seems to hear me and give me what I need. Even if it's something I don't want.

I guess all I'm saying is that I can sort of feel the world turning right now. And for those of you that believe in this sort of thing, Mercury is about to change directions and really zip us around the other way.  But that's okay.  I'm trying to be ready for it, meditating... I picture myself floating in space, running on Mercury like a log rolling contest. And when it changes directions, I'll be on top and just go with it...not get rolled over.

I'm ready.

I believe in me.

The world is coming alive again and I am feeling the buzz of it around me. The presence of all that we can't see.

I believe in so much I can't put words to...and I think...so do you.  So do you.

Empatharama

I was driving down Hawley Road the other day and I passed the Spring Hill Cemetery.  There was a man, standing at a grave site, grieving.   I was at the red light and I felt him before I saw him. I turned my head and there he was. I swear, I could feel his grief flow off him in a wave and hit me square in the chest, leaving me speechless.  I turned off the radio and let it in.

Oh, man, there is just something about grief.  It's hard and it's difficult, no doubt.... but it's also so soul filling.  Grief, whether I'm feeling my own or someone else's, it makes me feel really really alive.  Grief means that there was something that you loved...and even though you lost it...you loved it enough to grieve for it. That's powerful.

And now spring is coming and it's warm outside.  I have gone for a walk during my lunch break both yesterday and today and oh, the feeling emanating off the people in the street--the joy in the sun and the warmth--it is all around!  And that same wave of feeling hit me again yesterday from a man on the corner. He fist bumped the guy on Brady Street playing his guitar and I didn't just see the smile on his face, I felt it.

Whether it is as heart breaking as grief or as heart leaping as joy.... It is a wonderful thing to FEEL.

When I was living away from home, I remember the extremes of the pendulum swing of my emotions from aching homesickness to elation so strong I was moved to squeal.... it was a time in my life I'll always most the feeling of being alive.

In the daily routine of work and being a parent and running a house and driving a car, refilling water bottles and packing lunches....  sometimes those extremes get dulled.  But if you open your heart and eyes and mind and let the world around you move you a little; put on your headphones and listen to a song that makes you orbit; really look at someone you love while they tell you something...  it can fill you up, make you feel.

Alive.

Late winter sunset on 55th Street

Connecting

Today I was walking from a meeting and I put my music on.  I was feeling pretty glad because the meeting I had just left was full  of people who feel passionate about our shared work and I felt warm and connected.

Girl with Faraway Eyes by the Rolling Stones was the first song to play and it made me smile.

That song has the capacity to somehow bring me back to two places at once.  Or rather, more aptly, it takes me back to one place at once: Me.  But the two places I go first are these:
1. I am ten years old in a loud, smoky tavern with my parents.   The music is loud and I feel warm and surrounded and it's one of those good nights when it's just fun and I don't want to go home.  I like to fancy myself as a girl with faraway eyes.
2. I am twenty four years old and in Tad's apartment when we're first becoming friends.  That song comes on and I see Tad smile over at me from across the apartment and I can tell by his look, two things: He thinks I have faraway eyes. And he knows I fancy myself as someone with faraway eyes and he's laughing at me/with me with his own eyes.

So there you are and I'm walking down 6th and Wisconsin, listening to that song and smiling, and a man walking past me stops and says "What are you smiling about?"

This man is a complete stranger.  He has gray hair and a knit hat and a big sweater. He's wearing a backpack and he looks kind of hippyish and he's got a nice friendly energy so I stop.

"I'm listening to a good song." I tell him, popping the ear bud out of my right ear. I leave the one in my left and I can still hear Keith Richards and Mick Jagger faintly in my nearly deaf ear.

The man sort of looks back and notices my messenger bag. "Do you ride--"
"--What the bus?" I interrupt him.
"No...I was going to say a bike."
"I do ride a bike." I say. "But only when it's warm out."
"Do you live in Riverwest?"
"No. The west side."
He looks surprised. "The west side!?  Boring!"
And for some reason, I take my mitten off and smack him in the arm with it.  "The west side is NOT boring!"
He laughs and I tell him whereabouts I live and we talk about the Times Cinema.  He lives in Riverwest. Obviously.

So we talk awhile and then I smile at him and he smiles back.
"Have a nice day." I say.
"You too!" He says, pointing at me.

And we walk in seperate directions.   I put my right ear bud back in and now it's Leonard Cohen singing "Passing Through"

And I keep smiling as I walk.

Connection is so good.  For a lifetime, for an hour or for a couple minutes.  It just is good.

And if you're down on your luck

and you can't harmonize

get a girl with faraway eyes

And when you're downright disgusted

and life ain't worth a dime

find a girl with faraway eyes... 

Sometimes you feel so much so big it's just something else entirely...

The past few days have been weird...just big feelings...Mercury in Retrograde....longing....sadness....happiness all swinging from a pendulum that makes me laugh as quick as I cry.

When I lived in Estonia on the island of Kuressaare, there were weekends I would go for entire 48 hour periods without talking to anyone and my loneliness was big and the journey of my thoughts was miles deep.  One of those weekends, I walked to the school where I worked and on my three-mile walk home it began to rain.  That cold, wet, February rain...and by the time I got to my apartment I was soaked to the skin and freezing. My too-long pants were full of stones and when I unfolded them they dumped all over the hallway of my tiny dark apartment and I collapsed in a heap and cried so hard that you would have thought the biggest tragedy of life had befallen me.

After a while I realized that was how hard I was crying and just over a bit of homesickness and freezy wet weather... and suddenly I was laughing so hard and so hysterically.... I stood and saw my face in the hallway mirror and almost pointed in mockery and laughed some more.

Going from laughing hard to crying hard is one really inexpensive and natural way of feeling ALIVE.

Yesterday I cried all day long.  Today I feel joyful.  I love strong feelings whether they be horrid or wonderful because I love to feel wide awake and alive.

I decided I wanted to learn this Regina Spektor song on my ukulele.  But this song makes me cry big tears every time I listen to it and sure enough...every time I sing it. So there I was again, trying to learn this song and crying as soon as I got to this part:

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And there I was again crying and then laughing immediately after, at myself trying to sing a song wholeheartedly that was making me cry...all alone in my house while my kids played next door with the neighbors.

Give this song a listen. And cry. Or laugh. Or both.  Or just hear it and know your own heart is pumping blood and you are alive.

And they grow and they grow...

I remember the days when I would have paid someone $10,000 a year just to get my kids out of bed, into clothing, fed and into the car for the drive to school.  I imagined myself there in the car, sipping my coffee, listening to a mix CD, waiting to receive my snowpants and boots clad children who would be ready to go--backpacks on, fuss free, in the car.
But alas, I didn't have $10,000 to spare and so I had to drag them out of bed and coax them through breakfast. I remember being like...
Put your boots on.
Put your boots on.
Here are your boots. Put them on.
Put your boots on!
Good! You're putting your boots on. Thanks for being such a good---
Why is that boot back off?
Put your boots on!
Why are you upstairs??? Come down here right now and PUT YOUR BOOTS ON!!!!! 
I remember slamming out of the house with the bags to put in the car, hoping upon hope that when I got back in their em-effing boots would be on already.  I banged my way out there, swearing up a storm and then remembered my wonderful neighbor next door who had raised twelve children (God bless her soul) could probably hear me.

I remember those days.

And then those days are gone just like that.

Today I get my kids up with one little shake. Sit on the edge of the bed. And that's it.  I go downstairs and get breakfast on the table and they get their own clothes out. And they get dressed themselves. And when it's time to go, they complain, yes, they still do. But they put their boots on.

And I make jokes.  "I didn't create the school start time.  I don't know what you're complaining to me for!" And we laugh. And we get there on time.  Fuss free.

It is lovely.

Tonight Tad made a video and we pretended we were having a cooking show as we made chocolate chip cookies after dinner, just because. We played Crazy Eights while we waited for them to bake and my kids made jokes that were hilarious and nuanced and weird and I felt just awestruck that we were all just hanging out.

And I know there are teenage years to come.  And it gets harder.

But we're in a sweet spot now and I like it. 

I don't mourn my childrens' babyhood.  I don't wish for those cooing, suckling creatures back.
I don't mourn their toddlerhood.  I don't wish for their chubby cheeks and dimpled elbows.
I try not to mourn those years or last year or yesterday.

We are marching on with time...and I think I'll just appreciate tonight...tonight.

The opposite of pomp

This year, I left many pissed of people in my wake, decorating for the holidays before the prescribed time.  I decorated at work the day before Thanksgiving and at home on November 30th.
I love the holidays. I love the feel of my office and my house all twinkly with lights and dangling baubles--snowmen and santa claus and reindeer.  The warmth that surrounds a Christmas decorated place is a magical thing. 
But to do so before December starts, before even our day of turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and pumkin pie.. Well.... that's just deplorable according to some.

And now it is January 3.  Tomorrow school begins again.  Tad and I go back to work and the snow is no longer the white, fluffy thing of a winter wonderland--just another something sparkly to look at from the cozy warmth of your decorated house.  On January 3rd it's just cold and dirty and it makes you late for work.  It's a hallmark of the winter that will surely now last until sometime at the end of March and crop up again in April just when you thought it was over....

This is the day that marks the end of the holidays for me.  So I got up and made myself a cup of coffee and sat down in front of the tree to begin to UN-deck the halls. I was just holding the tenth taken-down ornament in my hand when I heard a noise from the other room.

"What are you doing?" Tad asked me in alarm.

See, as much as he wished to delay the tinsel draped yuletide season, he doesn't want to see it end.  Nor do my children.  It's like this every year.  I want to put it all up earlier than everyone and I want to take it all down earlier than everyone. 

But the decking and undecking of the halls have a thing in common.  Two sides of the same shiny golden wrapped chocolate coin you find in your stocking:  they are tasks that need to be done, scheduled in with all the other tasks that need to be done.  And I find a certain practicality in WHEN those tasks get done.  I decked before rightly I should have because it FIT INTO MY SCHEDULE... I had TIME to do so.  And so here we are. Tad is reading; the kids are watching Sunday morning television.  I'm ready to tick this task off my list of things.

But alas.  I sit here blogging because Tad convinced me to wait just a bit longer--to let the sparkly centerpiece of our living room remain for just a few more warm and cozy hours.

And then winter truly begins.

Twenty one books....

I love to read.  I consume books.  I gobble them up so fast, one after the other, so that at times, when people ask me what a book was about, I can scarcely remember.  So Tad suggested I keep a book journal and I started one on January 2015.    My book journal includes the book title and author, the date I started the book and the date I finished the book. It also includes quotes from the book that struck me enough that I wanted to remember them.  It also includes the books that I decided to abandon after starting them. It hurts a bit to do so, but this year I gave myself permission to abandon books that I just didn't love.  "It's not you. It's me" I told them.

I read 51 books this year from start to finish.  I abandoned 2. 

In May, my friend Kate posted a link to this Huffington Post article: 21 books from the last 5 years that all women should read. 

I decided to read them all.

So from May to December of 2015 I read each and every book on the list.  I would like to share with you my five seven favorites from that list in no particular order. 

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

Yes Please by Amy Poehler 

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Room by Emma Donoghue

I loved these books in particular because they were all full of real emotion and beautiful truths. 

All seven of these books made me forget I was reading actual words and took me along on a ride somewhere. 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: "That girl never understood that the first rule of life in Lagos. You do not marry the man you love. You marry the man who can best maintain you!     .....Amen...But sometimes one man can be both o."

Helen Oyeyemi: "When something catches your attention just keep your attention on it. Stick with it until the end, and somewhere along the line there'll be weirdness.  Ive never tried to explain it to anyone before but what I mean to say is that a whole a lot of technically impossible things are always trying to happen to us."

Roxanne Gay: "Death is a tragedy whether it is the death of one girl-woman in London or seventy seven men, women and children in Norway. We know this, but perhaps it needs to be said over and over again so we do not forget.  I have never considered compassion a finite resource.  I would not want to live in a world where such was the case.  Tragedy. Call. Great. Small. Compassion. Response. Compassion. Response."

Amanda Coplin: "It was only too bad that to gossip and support mean ideas was easier and more enjoyable, really, than to keep quiet and know in silence that the true story can never be told, articulated in a way that will tell the whole truth. Even if it is better to be quiet, quietness will never reign. People talked, even the best of them."

Amy Poehler: "Going from crying to laughing [that] hard and fast happens maybe five times in your life and that extreme right turn is the reason why we are alive."

I thought Room and Wild were both fantastic but didn't write down any quotes from them.

What a lovely thing it is to read.  To get lost in a story that makes you laugh or cry or better yet, to think.  I hope you check out some of these twenty-one books if you have not already. Let me know what you thought.

 

 

Why is your enthusiasm not as wide as mine?

I've noticed this phenomenon in which someone feels strongly about a piece of art like a song or a scene from a movie, or even a play in a football game or a strong statement that someone made...A person feels strongly about this thing...and they cannot BELIEVE that the person or people around them are not having the same reaction.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Picture this public example:

A football player on the field, looking up at the stadium, aghast, almost angrily flapping his arms up and down, asking for more enthusiasm from the crowd.  Why is he so angry about it? I often wonder to myself.  People are going to get as excited as they're going to get.  Yay! One of your teammates got a touchdown or a two point conversion. Amazing!  People are already cheering loudly; You make a hundred zillion dollars a year.  What more do you want?  Is their increased volume going to validate you and your teammates further?

Or this more private example:

A man at a party, playing a song that he absolutely loves for a group of people.  They smile, bop their heads up and down to the beat.  Listen closely to the lyrics. But still. This man is astounded that these people are not reacting with the life changing amazement that he did upon really hearing this song for the first time.  Their minds aren't sufficiently blown. What is their problem???  He wants to know why their enthusiasm for this piece of art isn't as resplendent as his.  I see this happen often enough and I always want to know...why is it so important to you that others react like you react. Does our lack of enthusiasm for this thing somehow discount your own? It shouldn't.

But we want people to share in our glory and our grief.  Our joy and jubilation, or distaste and outrage.  I do understand this.  I want it too. 

But there's a difference between contagious thrill in music, art or sport..and an almost ire in someone not sharing your same reaction... 

I'm trying to understand why this bothers me so much when I see it happen.  Is it because it annoys me when someone gets angry at another for a naturally occurring reaction (or non-reaction)?  I admit that I'm not the most comfortable with anger without forward action...  And I believe that anger always is the secondary emotion to something more uncomfortable to sit with...like pain...hurt...rejection.  So then, is it because of the validation so craved and needed in that moment? Does it make me become aware of the validation I also wish for? 

I suppose I recognize that the person trying to take, albeit sometimes in a forceful manner, the shared reaction of his or her fellow humans, comes from a place of simply wishing to share in something moving.  We all want community of a kind.  We want to share in the experiences of things strongly felt.  I think, in this age of face-book paced twittering on and on about our sandwiches, our babies, how long we worked out, our experience of the horrific things going on in this world with the same voracity,  we want to matter.

The tight end with his big bucks and heavily padded work life wants to matter.  The party goer with his discovery of a new beautifully produced song with smart lyrics wants to matter.  I want to matter. You want to matter.  

And we do. 

Multitasking

I know, I know. They say that multitasking isn't actually a real thing and if you're doing one thing then you can't really do the other thing very well at all.

Texting and driving.

Listening to voicemail and checking email.

Folding laundry and eating soup.

Case in point:

Tonight I called my dear friend Ryan for a catch up chat.  For a while, I just wandered around the house while I talked to him, but after a bit, I realized that I was sweating and that it was hot and stuffy in our house.  I remembered that I still hadn't taken down a few of our storm windows and I thought it would be a great idea to do that while I talked to Ryan.

As he told me what was going on in his life and I told him about mine, I got the front room storm window out, brought it in to the house, got a chair and the screen window and tried to put it up only to find that I couldn't reach it.  Bear in mind Ryan is still telling me a story at this point and I am listening.  As I carried the ladder up from the basement and out to the front of the house, bonking it into walls and corners and finally getting it outside, Ryan said to me, "What is going on over there?"

"Oh!" I laughed. "I'm taking the storm windows down. Am I making a lot of noise?"
"Yeah!" Ryan said, laughing.

We continued our conversation and I moved on to the dining room windows.  These windows are considerably more difficult.  They are high up on the house (almost to the second to last rung of the ladder I have to climb) and sticky.  I got the first one out and the screen in no problem.  The second one was stuck.  Going back into the house, still talking to Ryan, I climbed upon our built-in china cabinet and tried to tap at the window to get it unstuck.  Nothing.  So I went back outside, climbed the ladder and unhooked the screen window which was already in.  I went back in the house, and pushed it so it was halfway open, leaving me space to push from the inside and pull from the outside the winter storm window that was stuck.

Ryan was telling me a tale about work and I held the phone tightly between my ear and my shoulder as I ever so gently tapped the heavy stuck storm window out of its frame.  Suddenly, it was freed and then it was freed a bit too enthusiastically and I fell sideways on top of the china cabinet, trying to old fast to the falling storm window AND listen to my friend.  Well, that storm window was quite heavy and the sheer force of its fall tipped me forward and I dropped both the phone and the window RIGHT out the widow frame and into the garden below.

"Don't worry Ryan!" I shouted, leaning out into the open window frame. "I dropped you out the window!"
I clambered down from the cabinet and ran downstairs and outside, yelling "I'm coming, Ryan!"
Once down there, I found to my relief that the storm window was fully intact. I was sure it would have broken in the fall and was so glad it didn't.  Now at least I would have the option of NOT explaining what had happened to my husband when he returned.
But I couldn't find my phone.
"Here I am, Ryan!" I yelled, crawling around in the grass,  "I can't find my phone!  I'm coming!" I shouted as I rooted around in the bushes, "I'll find you! Don't go away!"
Finally I found the phone face up on the ground and to my delight, Ryan was still there.
"OH Ryan, you're still there! I dropped you out the window!"
"I'm still here." he said.  He was laughing "What happened?"
When I got up from the grass and looked up, my son was standing there, arms folded looking at me sort of scoldingly.  "Mommy." He said. "What are you doing?"
I looked up to the house and Lucy was in the half-open screen window, peering down at me. "Mommy. You're being very loud."

I ushered my children inside and finished my conversation with Ryan and decided that it might be best to save the activity of the taking down and putting up of storm windows for when you're not engaged in any other activities.

But it's done!

Falling.

So apparently this guy, Arthur Aron, did a study where he came up with a series of questions with increasing intimacy for two people to ask one another, culminating in staring into one another's eyes for 4 straight minutes. 

Then this woman..this New York Times writer, Mandy Len Catron, tried it with this guy she'd had her eye on.  In her story, it worked.  She and that guy are now happily married.  And she says, at the end of her article that they didn't fall in love...they chose to be.

This is a question I ask myself and other people all the time.  Do people fall in love? Do people believe in the kind of love that just happens to you, the kind that you can't even help or stop or steady?  The kind that overtakes you like the waves of an ocean all warm and giddy and alive? 

I do.

The kind of love that happened to me and Tad is as undeniable to us as God is to people of faith.  It wouldn't be fair to tell us it doesn't exist. It would be blasphemous.  I want to find more and more people that believe in that kind of love.  That would be my kind of church.

I looked up the questions and found them in this New York Times article.

And then, last Saturday night, when we had a date because my parents agreed to take our kids overnight and he asked me what I wanted to do...I told him.

I wanted to answer those 36 questions and stare for four minutes into eachother's eyes.

Uh oh.  He said to me, smiling.

Now, let me clarify...the kind of love that I believe happened to Tad and me...it happened. But the kind of love we share now, the marriage, the partnership, the raising of children and running of a household? That we choose.  We work really really hard and some days it's wonderful and some days one of us wants to other one of us to bugger off for a while....  That's how relationships are.  But love...love is something else entirely.

Anyway, we went out for Italian food.  Actually we drove all the way to Hales Corners for our favorite Italian food at Mia Famiglia to find it is closed and moving!  So we drove to another restaurant in the third ward that I knew about and it was closed too!!!  Finally we found an Italian place downtown and went there.  We made it through 31 questions during our appetizer, salad and meal.  Then I wanted to go to Purple Door ice cream to finish the last five questions.  Wouldn't you know, it was closed too!!!  But we drove over to Outpost and bought food for the morning and desserts and asked our last four questions.

It was awesome.  We just listened to each other and talked and reaffirmed things we believe and reminisced and it was great.  We talked about our dreams and fears, family relationships, best and worst memories, things we have in common, things we like about each other.  After one of Tad's answers I told him, "See, now if we were first dating or just met, I'd be like, YEP, I could be with this guy."  But at another answer I frowned and said, "Well, that one would have been a turn-off!"  "Hey!" Tad said, his hands up in mock surrender, "There are thirty-six of these!"

We did the eye gazing too.  And it was nerve wracking and scary... deep and serious...silly and lovely.  It was another kind of communication.

I don't know.... maybe that study would work with perfect strangers, maybe not..I think the series of questions for SURE gives you the intimacy and connection with another person that makes you closer. 

But I still believe in the kind of love that takes you over without you choosing it first....