Knocking Boots; the Married Version

I stood in the kitchen slapping together PB&J's while my husband, at the kitchen table, scrounged through a pile of my son's laundry to find matching socks.

The sock situation frustrated him.

"Jonah has fewer socks every day," he complained.

I shrugged. Matt worries about some things, I worry about others.

"We should just throw this one away," he said. I happened to have the gargbage drawer opened at the moment, so I stood back and pointed into it while making meaningful eye contact with Matt. He lobbed the white sock across the kitchen. It flopped over the edge of the garbage bin. I picked it up and inspected it.

"This is a perfectly good sock," I said. "Let's just save it. The other one might be in the wash."

"I guess so," he said. He held out his hand for me to toss the sock back across the kitchen.

"Are you guys flopping socks?" Audrey asked. She was at the counter pretending to spread jam on a piece of bread, but really licking the knife.

I smirked. "Is that like knocking boots?" I asked Matt.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

I smiled. "Yup. And I guess flopping socks is what married people do."

sweet man tricks

I was sneering over the popularity of "life lists" the other day, and describing how making artificial lists like that only causes tension and disappointment and also causes us to put things on them that we don't really want, just to fill them up, etc., when my husband interrupted.

"The other day you said Clive Owen was on your list," he reminded me.

"Oh, ha ha! I meant THE list, you know, the one where we get a free pass to sleep with the celebrities on our list if we ever get the chance."

"Yeah, except that there is no such list," he said dryly.

"Oh, come on, it's it's a fun idea. It's not for real. Like there's any way I'm ever going to get the chance to sleep with Clive Owen! Ha!"

He walked toward me, deadly serious. "Clive Owen would like you." He wrapped his arms around my waist. "I'm not going to agree to any list."

Sigh. I guess the next time I'm at a premier at Cannes and a gorgeous international superstar wants to get into my pants, I'm just going to have to say no.

Life is so unfair.

To Keep Your Side of the Deal

In Seattle, a huge music and arts festival called Bumbershoot heralds the end of summer every Labor Day weekend. It takes over the sprawling facility surrounding the Space Needle and draws 40,000 people per day for three days.

When I was childless, whether or not I should go to Bumbershoot was a no-brainer. I took the bus, paid my money, and stayed all day. I'd hear six or seven bands. I'd drop in on some book readings. I'd wander through the galleries. When I felt like resting, I'd sprawl out on the grass somewhere until I felt like getting up again. I'd come back the next day and repeat.

Everything's different now that I have little kids. If a kid is involved at a big event like this, the time is fractured and focused on food and potty issues. If I go without the family, I'm required to negotiate times and chores with my husband, weigh this activity against other upcoming things I might want to cash in my child care chips for, and shoulder some guilt.

This year the timing wasn't right. It was a busy weekend. I was suffering some kind of mental/physical sickness. It all just seemed like too much of a pain. I decided to forget it.

I was okay with this decision, mostly.

I was okay with it until the last night of the festival, when, while I stirred a pot of Thai curry on the stove at home, a Steve Earle song came over the radio. I rushed to the nearest speaker.

"I love Steve Earle," I sighed to my husband. I turned the volume up, went back to the kitchen, and continued to swoon.

"Never heard of him," said Matt.

"He is a great songwriter. In the 80's he - wait, is this LIVE?"

Matt, sitting in the living room with his laptop, offered to look it up on the KEXP website. "Yep, it's live," he said. "Some private KEXP thing at Bumbershoot."

Motherfucker. I sunk down into a chair beside him. My heart had started to bleed a bit. I got up and turned off the pot of rice. I assembled the kid's quesadillas.

It's okay, I told myself.

We all sat down to dinner. Steve Earle continued to play this intimate show where I was not present. My heart started to bleed more. It was no longer okay.

I dropped my spoon with a clatter. "I really want to go see The Frames and Steve Earle tonight," I blurted.

The bus dumped me at Seattle Center just in time to see The Frames. I nosed my way past casual onlookers into the part of the crowd where people were screaming requests at the band and standing shoulder to shoulder with one another. All I had to carry was my own bag. All I had to listen to was the music. A great tree canopy overhead released a few drying leaves on our heads to memorialize the last day of summer. The sky grew steadily darker.

Glen Hansard, the tall red-headed Irishman capturing our attention onstage, sang about how hard it is to keep your side of the deal. I knew what he meant. I'd been trying all weekend.

Watching Hansard's lanky body jerk and shimmy, hearing him cry "you'll see how hard it can be," gratified about nineteen different desires, and brought to mind the fundemental struggle that is always mine to manage: how do I keep my side of the deal and keep myself at the same time?

Sometimes it can feel as if feeding any need or desire I have will take something away from my babies or husband. It can feel as if wanting to be lost in pure pleasure - like music - is somehow aberrant. This is especially so since my husband and I follow different passions. It feels like if it's purely mine, it can't be good.

I tore myself away to catch Mr. Earle on another stage. He sang of a woman ("Whatsername, wherever the hell she is") who ran wild and disappeared into the sunset on a motorcycle.

I took a cab home, helped with last-minute bedtime water cups and pee-pee trips, and slept beside my domestic husband just like millions of other women were doing that night. I fell asleep thinking about the Whatsername-like woman inside me. She shimmers below the surface most of the time. At times she's so close I think she might take me over. Just noticing her makes me feel aberrant.

Well, I thought, snuggling in for the night, here's one more day she stayed put. Meanwhile, I'm still here keeping my side of the deal.




(Photo by joshc off Frames website. See more here.)

Girls Should...Exercise 1

I'm posting from Freeland, WA, on Whidbey Island. Last family vacation of the summer. As a bonus, I am staying an extra day...alone. To write and read and walk on the beach. The beach condo on Mutiny Bay that I've rented from a friend has no Internet service, which is a lovely blessing.Thanks to the Island County library system, I am able to reach you.

Here is the first of the exercises from the book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued by Susan O'Doherty. She asks me to draw a picture of the person who was my primary caregiver when I was a child, with a dialogue bubble starting with the words, "Girls should..." At first I had an image of my mother, but then I had an image of my husband! Instead of freaking out, I went with both. Here is what I wrote:

My primary caregiver then...

[drawing of my haggard mom with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, a frazzled perm, and a dialogue bubble]

"Girls should be pretty and well groomed. You want to be able to attract a man. It's important to be sexy. Iron your clothes, make sure your hair's clean, and use proper English."

Both of my mom's parents had come from homes with no stability or safety. Together, they raised a family that tended to be one paycheck away from broke, but strived to be clean and respectable. It was a point of pride to have a spic and span house, to owe no favors or debts. They were quite strict about boundaries and limits, even when it came what one was allowed to ask for in life. Especially then. About being so strict, my grandma told me, "My mother didn't know what all I did when I was girl. I rode the street cars all over Oakland and San Francisco when I was ten, twelve years old. When I had children [at 16], I wanted them to know that someone gave a damn about them."



My primary caregiver now...

[drawing of my husband with a mild expression and dialogue bubble]

"Girls should enjoy being wives and mothers."

His mother was quite stoic and I don't believe he had any idea how unhappy she was. They don't complain in his family. When I'm with them in Boston I pick up on their sense of duty and repressed conflict. It's one of the things I actually found refreshing when I met them.

In the interest of fair representation, I must point out that my husband is supportive and wonderful. But we had to work to get to a place where it was okay for me to blow off steam about the kids or struggle openly with postpartum life. I don't think he witnessed this kind of thing as a kid.

Distractions

One thing I love about my daytime yoga classes is that there aren't too many younger, single, straight men there. Whenever one appears, I find myself immensely distracted by his presence.

This is due in part to my status as a SAHM. We SAHMs don't see a lot of men during the day. If we are having a day filled almost entirely with school drop-off/grocery store/pediatrician/playground visits, we can go for hours without seeing a man, except perhaps the guy slouched in front of QFC shaking a paper cup of coins. Anyone who has flung open the front door to greet the UPS carrier and felt a small, giddy rush of adrenaline at being in the presence of A MAN, for God's sake, knows what I mean.

Still, in yoga class, it is nice to be without that particular adrenaline rush. I enjoy this time to pay close attention to how my body feels as I practice. To note what my mind does. I appreciate this one place where I don't need to think about how I appear to others, or how they appear to me.

This is made easier for me by the demographics of my classes: the women, who make up 85% of any given class, are my age or older; gay men, who are bored, bored, BORED by all the full, female buttocks and breathy sighs all around them; straight men in their 30's who tend to show up with their wives or girlfriends; and the surprisingly studly silver-haired set. Those men tend to be cyclists and runners and in amazing shape, they just don't give off that certain...vibe.

A younger straight man who is unattached and in a room full of women gives off a vibe. Forgive me for saying so, but in my rambles I have observed that no matter how nice a single man he may be, he is either thinking, "Who in this room would I like to fuck?", "Who in this room do I have a chance of fucking?" or "How can I get someone here to want to fuck me?" (As you may have observed, this is not restricted to yoga class. I welcome any and all male readers of this blog to set me straight if I am wrong.) The older he is, the less he tends to broadcast it, but it's still hard to miss.

As a woman still in my child-bearing years, I am primed to pick up on this vibe. My DNA is patterned to receive this prowling energy, and I have been socialized to then start deciding what I am going to do with it. (Not to mention that I'm a brazen hussy at heart, if not in practice.)

I am happily married. What I am going to do with it, literally, is nothing. But how does this vibe effect my yoga practice? How does it effect my thoughts? Do I change anything about what I do, where I look, and what I think about?

Well, yeah. And it's annoying.

It happened this week in my Tuesday class. I got squished right up front next to some new guy I'd never seen before. Turns out he was visiting from an Anusara yoga studio in West Hollywood, the gayest city in California outside of San Francisco. Briefly, I looked forward to observing and maybe even riding some nonsexual gay boy-energy. Variety can refresh a girl.

And then he said, "...and I'm always the only straight guy there."

Dammit! Immediately, I took stock of my appearance. It was a day where my schmate yoga clothes were in the laundry so I wore my pretty ones. I had taken a shower before coming to class, due to lank hair separating into V's all over my scalp and giving off a stale smell. So my hair was wet, and trailing down my bare back. I was fresh as a daisy and feeling lovely.

"I'm Rob," he said, extending his hairy hand.

I thought, He heard me talking to the woman in the row behind us about my kids, right? He's not going to think I'm flirting with him if we have to become partners, right?

"I'm Susie," I said, taking it.

As our practice began, I realized, with some irritation, that I was giving off my own energy. The female, receptive, attracting kind. It was almost reflexive. Over and over, I breathed it out. Put my mind where it belonged: in my pelvis. I mean my CORE! I mean, my abdominal muscles! Not all of my core! Just the muscular part!

"Lift up through your pelvic floor," sang my teacher. Bloody hell. I'm lifting already, I'm lifting. Does a straight man know where his pelvic floor is? Does this guy, Rob, know how to lift up his pelvic floor? Is he aroused by all of these women around him lifting up their pelvic floor?

After class, Rob asked the teacher about other classes he might drop in on while he's here visiting. On my way out, I said, "Oh, hey, Rainey's class at 8 on Thursdays is really good."

"Thanks," he said. And then, "Are you going to be there?"

My teacher told a story once about another teacher she knew who brought along one really annoying person to every yoga retreat, just to give his students the chance to really practice mindfulness. It's easy to be all kind and peaceful and focusing on your practice when there are few distractions. But can you do it when that irritating stinky guy who groans orgasmically every time he pushes back into dog pose keeps placing his mat next to yours? How about when the boor of the group elbows into the private conversation you're having with your two favorite yoga friends about meditation making you a better person?

It's all fine and good to protect myself in my little yoga enclave of mostly menopausal women. What would happen if I dropped into a hipster studio and took a class with a bunch of 22-year-old hardbodies? I'd probably feel like a hag.

But that would be very good practice.

And no, Rob, I won't be there for that Thursday class, but thanks for the eye-opener that I still have so far to go.

The Drugs Don't Work (They Just Make You Worse)

There's a lot to write about. Two things are stopping me. These are:

1. My beloved has had surgery on his knee and is being utterly useless as he recovers. He feels really badly about it. Every time I bring him a tray of food he apologizes for his uselessness. I keep telling him it's okay, but I really have to go back downstairs now. "Are you mad?" he asks. "Of course not," I say. It's just that I'm simultaneously assembling French toast, bacon and strawberry smoothies while supervising the mud-making and rhododendron blossom harvest that's happening in the backyard. Gotta run.

2. The new drugs. They've sapped my desire to stay awake. The world feels muffled. I can't remember conversations. I can't even tell jokes properly. This is much worse than being somewhat reduced in the area of my intimate life. Now I'm reduced in all of my life.

As I write this, my two year old is sitting on the potty and insisting that while she has been there for 30 minutes, she still needs to go. It's after ten. I have read many books, settled a couple squabbles over toys, filled two humidifiers, sung about ten songs, rocked both kids in the rocking chair, argued about whether Audrey gets another drink of water, and now I am spent.

Will I ever get to go to bed tonight? Will Audrey ever get off the potty?

Mexico Diary (Part II)

January 12

There is a relaxed attitude about smoking here, which I, coming from the US, find at first alarming and then incredibly seductive. Wow, I think, noting the clean ashtrays at tables of restaurants and poolside lounges, I could just light up and no one would ask me to leave! I saw a man shepherding his family through an outdoor restaurant with a cigarette in his hand. You just NEVER see anything like this at home anymore. You have this sudden jolt, like, "Hey, he can't…how come no one is…" and then realize no one gives a rip.

This combined with all the drinking we've been doing (yet staying sober, I swear), has been making me desperate for a cigarette. I think about it all the time. I pass a super deli (Cabo's equivalent of a corner store) and think, I could just nip in there and get one.

Finally, this evening after the 24/7 family time came to be a bit much and I saw an opportunity to slough the children for a few minutes, I offered brightly to go in search of swim diapers for Audrey.

Matt was instantly suspicious. "Where are you going?"

"I want to check out the super deli off the lobby," I said. "Get us some limes. We need limes. It'll be great! I’ll get some swim diapers so you can stop worrying about poop in the pool, and we can have proper margaritas tonight. OK? Can I go?"

"Wait," he said, raising himself up on an elbow from his spot on the suite sofa. The kids were enjoying a post-dinner movie on the laptop. "You're going over there just to get limes?"

Exasperated, I said, "Look, I just want to go out for a minute, Ok?" I cupped my hands around my mouth and mouthed, "I want to smoke."

I have hidden my intermittent smoking life from the children thus far, which is good because they do know what smoking is. They've seen my parents do it a hundred times and asked me why people do it, is it okay, etc. We take a firm stand that it is dirty, unhealthy, and not okay.

"You want to smoke?" Matt yelped. The kids looked up from "Cinderella."

AAAAAAAAAARGH!

"Mommy why do you want to smoke?" asked Jonah.

"I don't! I think you misunderstood me, Matt," I said, glaring at him hard. "Anyway, off I go in search of diapers and limes. Good bye!"

When I came back later with limes and cigarettes (alas, no diapers), I helped Matt put the kids to bed and then poured us some really terrible homemade margaritas. Out on the balcony I sat with my drink and stubbornly lit a cigarette. I closed the glass door behind me. I took a wonderful burning drag.

The glass door slid open. Dang. One whole second for my nicotine-alcohol-solitude buzz.

"Can I join you?" Matt said, pulling out a chair.

"Are you sure you want to?" I asked. "I'm smoking."

"I don't understand your attitude," he said.

"I know." Pause. "I made you a drink."

We sat on the white deck chairs and watched the scene on the darkened beach: a few straggling couples, some lit torches near the steps to the resort. A smattering of boats rocked in the bay, barely visible but for the lights on their masts.

And it was nice for awhile.


January 13

The music here is categorically bad, except for a great, truly professional band we heard last night at dinner. As we waited for our food in a dim, catacomb-like room replete with walls of candles, two men set up chairs in a corner near the kitchen and began working on a samba. One patted some bongos between his thighs and the other strummed his guitar and crooned sweetly like Joao Gilberto. They leaned toward each other, watching the other's eyes and hands. Every now and then they'd stop abruptly and discuss something, then pick up again.

During dinner, they were joined by a stand-up bass player and another guitarist. A rollicking Latin blast ensued. To me, it felt like sweet relief. The kids clapped. I snapped. Audrey high-chair danced. I swayed a bit while nibbling my explosively hot seafood-stuffed, bacon-wrapped jalapenos. Pretty soon the kids and I drifted over to be in the presence of the strings and bongos and passionate male voices. Jonah allowed me to take him into my arms and spin him around a few times. Audrey bounced and smiled hugely. For their part, the men seemed delighted to have an audience (the rest of the diners were ignoring them completely). They all turned and directed their voices right to us. The bass player, a heavy mustachioed man with a scarred face (and one of the few locals I've seen with long enough limbs to manage a stand-up bass) laughed at Audrey's antics and made crazy faces at her.

Later I sent Jonah with a bunch of pesos over to their tip jar. I was quite happy to pay for being in their light for while. Because in the morning, the piano man who performs (badly) on the breakfast patio will bore us all to death with "Moon River."

This morning, by the pool, I watched a silver-haired woman glide past the pool's waterfall, limbs elegantly performing the inelegant breast stroke. From the patio came the troubled strains of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." The pianist missed a note. The lady swimmer kept swimming. I turned over on my chaise longue.

After a life of travel anxiety, I think I am getting the hang of vacation.

The Rules

This morning I asked Matt for an immediate half hour of time off to write. I had just finished my breakfast. He was just starting his. Audrey bounced around demanding bits of his smoked salmon and bagel, simultaneously elbowing her brother in the ribs as she muscled her way in between dining chairs to be closer to Daddy's food. I regretted sticking Matt with both kids before he'd finished his coffee. But I do not want today to be like yesterday. I must approach today with whatever dregs of desire for holistic family wellness I can scrape together. So here I am.

I am trying some of the tricks I've learned over the past year and forgotten the less I "needed" them. As I lay in bed this morning trying to ignore Audrey climbing all over me, I made a small intention to get out of bed without complaining. To make the dear child her bowl of Organic Toasted Oats with tolerance if not blissful maternal love. And then see what happened.

I placed a warm sweater over her thin shoulders and offered socks. She shook her head. Together, we descended the stairs. I looked around. I saw at least five things to put away, throw away, organize, rearrange. Remembering a rule I made for myself a year ago, No chores before coffee, I made a conscious decision to walk past the wadded tissue paper, empty cardboard boxes, and pine needles on the floor. Audrey toddled right up to the Christmas tree and swiftly beheaded a toy soldier. Then she began her usual demanding-customer routine: "I want cereal. I want some milk. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, I want my vitamin. I want some breakfast." Now, when I'm grumpy, I ignore her for awhile while making my coffee, then snap at her because her begging has reached a fever pitch, then dutifully serve her the motherfucking whatever she wants while complaining about the lousy tips around here. But let's start today differently.

I kept my voice low. I responded to my little urchin calmly, looking at her in the eyes. (Make eye contact is another of my almost-forgotten rules for sanity.) I set her up with food immediately in order to distract her from vandalizing the Christmas tree. She was occupied. I was relaxed.

I scanned the front page of the newspaper. This is against one of my rules, Ignore the news until lunchtime, but I did it anyway because Western Washington is in a state of crisis and I wanted to know the latest news. (Seven dead, 50 hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning, homes split in half by fallen trees.) And then I just needed to write for awhile.

Ask for what you need.

Can I make a better day today? Can I enjoy the children today? Can I let them off the hook as well as myself?

Can I give my husband three uninterrupted hours in front of the Patriots game?

Well, one thing at a time.

Whose Hide?

Friday night, the news program 20/20 aired a segment about working mothers, and what employers and the government should be doing to help them, and, by extension, Society. The anchorwoman, Elizabeth Vargas, even went so far as to out herself as having taken maternity leave. This was her first story back. Her co-anchor marveled on-air at what full hands she had with an infant, a 3-year-old, and "this job."

I must applaud 20/20 for taking on the issue, and for suggesting that government may have a role in supporting "the family." Alas, "the family" was barely mentioned in this story. Even the co-anchor, when introducing the story and welcoming Vargas back, failed to mention whether or not he also had kids at home along with "this job," and hence, "full hands." Instead, he gave her the old, "Gosh, Hun, I just don't know how you do it."

Here's the question that wasn't asked: Where are the dads? Why didn't anyone talk about the dads? How is it that even now, when some companies offer paid paternity leave, that men are still not universally expected to share the general sacrifice that running a family requires? How can it be that in 2006, affordable childcare and flextime are still talked about as women's issues?

Raising families and running households require sacrifice. The question I constantly bat around is whose hide the sacrifice is coming out of. In an ideal family, the kids would remain in a circle of unbroken love and attention for eternity. Their little hides would never be scathed. But it's not a perfect world. We parents require rest, time off, replenishment, sleep, the occasional shower. Also most of us still need to earn a living. As parents, we are faced with constant demands for sacrifices, small and large. There are only three places where sacrifices come from in a nuclear family:

1. Mom (or Dad)
2. Dad (or the other mom)
3. The Kids

(Okay, there are also the dog, the house, the finances, friends, personal hygiene, but those are secondary and beyond the scope of this post.)

In the 20/20 scenario, it appears the sacrifices of running a family are coming out of mom and the kids. Maybe this is case for those women. I know it is true for many, many, many women. But this is just not the case all the time, in real life. So many dads step up to the job, and so many moms demand it.

So I would like to hear from you about how the dad in your family sacrifices. What comes out of his hide instead of yours or the children's? Put the story out there. The world needs to hear it.

More Love, Please

More scribbles from the spring:

A day of rattling brains, over stimulated nerves, a queasy stomach. I’m crashing again. I seem to run in short cycles of mania and depression. Good Lord, could I be bipolar? If I am, it’s exacerbated by the citalopram. During the “manic” phase I feel boundless possibility, endless creativity, ideas popping left and right. I love everything, everyone. Yes! I say. This is life!

And then there are days like today, when I can’t handle a thing. The kids nag, I want to scream. Someone makes a demand on me, I want to knock them across the room.

In yoga class today, our sub teacher Beth focused on the yama of non-harming. Non-aggression. Which is really, says Beth, love and loving-kindness.

Love and loving-kindness were way beyond my ken today, so I meditated on non-aggression. I put my boundless aggressive energy into massive muscular dynamism. I did my standing poses like a warrior. I did my chatturanga dandasana with supple animal strength. When I was all emptied out, I did legs-up-the-wall pose and then savasana.

Savasana is always a great opportunity to feel the effects of my practice. I could see something wavering beneath all that aggression and cyclonic emotion: lack of love.

There is a lack of love in my household, I declared to myself. The kids are needy, naggy, whiny. Matt and I are depleted, irritated, always trying to get away. There is hardly ever a time when we can look at each other, face to face, and complete even a short, declarative sentence, much less a loving gaze or searching question. Trying to focus on one another feels futile. I miss him. I need us to be a real couple.

I am nervous about where my aggression lies today. It’s at my kids. I cannot connect with them. I just want them to be quiet, go away, leave me alone. I want to slough them onto someone else. I can’t do anything for them. They nag me, and pull at me, and demand of me, totally fucking constantly. Audrey has another cold, so she’s been crying and yelling a lot. Matt has a stomach aliment so he’s been running to the bathroom a lot. We are sick. This household is sick.

Lord, help us.

But what if love didn’t have to be something I made up from scratch? What if I didn’t have to create it or perform it? What if the love is always there, and now it’s buried and obscured? The love is, maybe, like the pearl. Buried under a lot of crap. But always there, always shining.

Thinking this way lets me off the hook. It relieves me of so much guilt (which I am feeling heaps of tonight). It’s not that I’m a bad person incapable of loving my children. I love them fiercely. The love is depressed by all this…depression.

Which brings me to another big question: when am I going to get better? Is this what it’s going to be like for a long time? A few good days, a few bad days, a violent haze, hello schizo mommy? Should I just put aside a trust fund for the children’s future therapy right now?

Depression is so weird because it can actually erase love. Or block my capacity to feel it, contact it, dip into its river. Oh, love, I think wearily. That’s when you don’t yell, right? I am continually stunned by the way depression can close off whole rooms in my mind, without my even noticing. It makes me feel like an utter loon.

So what do I do now? Up my dosage again?

Or this: maybe I do nothing. Maybe I just float.