Yoga at Shows

I am a useful person to go to rock shows with. Not only will I drink too much and amuse you, but if you get fatigued by all the standing around, I know Things to make you feel better.

At Silversun Pickups, I did a maneuver on my friend Sara that made her go slack and groan. I stood behind her, bent my knees, grasped the sides of her ribcage, and used my powerful mama arms and legs to lift her spine and decompress her lower back. She did actually groan. Later, when she complained again about her back (because we're getting too old to stand around for hours on end waiting for silly bands to finish whatever they are doing backstage before coming out), I placed my hands on her upper buttocks and squeezed the flesh in toward her sacrum. We've known each other for approximately 57 years, so she didn't mind me touching her butt. Her face brightened. "I feel so much better!" she said.

I learned all this at my prenatal yoga training. I love knowing that I can make someone feel better. Plus, I can make myself feel better.

At The Long Winters, my lower back was killing me. I'd been to the above-mentioned show the night before, and had just done two days of more yoga training. As my great-grandparents used to say, I was tard. I turned to my husband, who is tall and strong and tolerant, and said, "Remember when I was in labor and I hung on you during contractions? Let's do that now." He assumed the position. I faced him, threaded my arms underneath his armpits and up around his shoulders, then let my body hang. I buried my face in his stomach. He stood there and allowed it. Afterwards, a couple about our age snuck sly glances at us. The woman laughed in what appeared to be a knowing way. I bet she was either a mom and knew what I was doing, or she thought I was a tard. I didn't care either way because now I felt much less cranky.

I promise never to do any of this to you unless you ask. You may have to put up with me disappearing into a forward bend every now and then. If I'm there and then suddenly I'm not, just look down. If you are feeling generous, please pull my shirt down over my butt crack. Thanks.

Dinner Conversation

Me: "Hey, guys, how about some sliced apples with cinnamon?"

Audrey: "Yeah!"

Jonah: "Mumble mumble mumble."

Me: "What was that, Jonah?"

Jonah: "Mom, I'm not really in the mood for things with cinnamon."

Me: "Ok, so do you want apple without cinnamon?"

[silence]

Me: "Jonah?"

Jonah: "Just bacon."

Audrey: "I don't want bacon!"

Medication, for Better or for Worse

So the Wellbutrin causes my brain to melt when I ingest mere drops of alcohol, a fact I've detailed in a previous post. I find myself slurring and talking about things I ordinarily would keep to myself. This is annoying.

It's annoying because pre-Wellbutrin I'd been having fun playing with awareness about verbal restraint. Awareness of where my energy goes via the hot air I produce leads me to tone down general verbal incontinence. It means before I speak, I flash on my motivation. This is very instructive.

(My yoga teacher talks about leaking prana, which means wasted energy, and a person can really leak a lot of prana shooting the bull about things that are of absolutely no consequence to anyone. This doesn't mean that I only talk about Important Things. I don't have anything against people who only talk about Important Things, I just don't want to hang out with them.)

Before I added this new drug to my regimen, I usually had the presence of mind to observe my motivation for talking at some point during a day. Sadly, the Wellbutrin turned out to be a verbal diuretic. Talk about leaks. Recently I have found myself going on and on about Martha Stewart, the failed Seattle Commons of ten years ago and how stupid the failure was because look what's happened to South Lake Union anyway, and, the other night at a small dinner party, towels.

I didn't start it. The hostess did. I mentioned, while helping place cloth napkins on the table, how a little girl we had over for a play date recently told me that cloth was best because paper kills the environment. My hostess friend looked at me with a wrinkled expression.

"I don't know," she said. "With all the laundry I do, it hardly seems that way."

I gave her a "yeah, well, who knows?" kind of shrug. She pressed further. "What's your system for towels and napkins?"

Because I have one, I told her. She led me into the bathroom to show me the new bamboo-fiber washcloths she had purchased, ostensibly to offset the environmental damage she was causing by washing all linen items after only one use. We proceeded to stand in the bathroom and discuss our towel-use habits at length. And our bathing habits. At a certain point I flashed on conversations I have had while stoned. I thought, this feels like I'm stoned. Am I stoned? Where's my margarita?

Next day, while filling my pill-dispenser for the week, I cut all the Wellbutrins in half. Soon I'll be Wellbutrin-free.

Will this be better or worse?

The Downfall of Broadway and Pine

Sometimes after the parent-baby class I take Audrey to, a few other moms and I invade a small grungy pizza joint around the corner with our strollers and small children. We did this today, and since Audrey was clinging to her pizza when it was time to go, I let her walk out of the place holding her food.

While we meandered up Pine Street at a very slow pace to our parking spot where the meter had expired ten minutes ago, Audrey stopped to pick up a flattened, chewed-on red straw off the sidewalk. I batted it out of her hand. "Ick," I said.

Normally, of course, I would direct her to the nearest trash receptacle and give her a big high five for cleaning up. But she was holding food, so my first concern was about cross-contamination. Further complicating matters, no trash receptacle immediately presented itself. From experience I knew that it would take a day and a half to find one at the rate we were going. So I, extremely dutiful citzen though I usually am, left the straw and kept walking.

"There's a trash can right here," I heard a voice behind me say. I turned to see a man bend down to pick up the offending straw.

"Oh, I didn't drop that...she picked it up..." I started.

"Yeah, and I saw you take it right out of her hand and drop it on the ground again." To further prove his point, which must be that people like me are a tragic drain on the patience of others, he bent down and picked up another peice of random garbage (with which I'd had no dealings)and stalked around the corner to deposit it appropriately. "You should show her where the trash can is so she knows where to put her pizza crust when she's done with that," he bitched, sashaying past us in a huff.

I stared at the back of his plaid wool blazer.

How could I explain that we would never waste good pizza crust?

Every Moment is a Transition

Those of you who know me know that I am not a happy housewife or a contented stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). Since I don't earn much money and I have two children, I really should be those things, but alas, my DNA, or inbred bad temperament, or something, prevents me.

Since admitting all of this two years ago and taking steps to remedy the situation, I have come to the point of being spoiled by adequate childcare. This means that when confronted with extended periods of responsibility for my children and dinner and laundry and the dog and all of that, my initial reaction is to try to get out of it.

This isn't something I'm proud of, or like to broadcast. But since you already know about my psychiatric medications and my drinking habits, why should I leave this out? One of my goals for this blog is to tell the truth about what happens to one's mind in mental breakdown/motherhood mode. I tend to identify rather well with Heather Armstrong's version of SAHM, which is Shit-Ass-Ho-Motherfucker.

Still, I often regret that I can't deal with domestic life in a more balanced, grateful, accepting way. Because in a global way, I feel deep gratitude for my life. If someone asked me to close my eyes and think of a time when I was happiest, I would say, "Now." And all of my jaw-flapping about practicing being present, and practicing non-attachment, and accepting the moment for what it is is totally sincere. It's just impossible to follow at home.

Or almost impossible. I am discovering a new way to practice non-attachment with the children. I tell myself that I am not in a hurry. And I practice not being in a hurry. When I am in a hurry, I am trying to escape the moment. The moment can be excruciating to stand, when Audrey needs to re-buckle her car seat after vacating it, or when Jonah sings songs while staring at the ceiling with his underwear halfway down his skinny legs and growls at me when I try to hurry him along so we can make it to preschool on time. During these moments, I would like nothing more than to be transported elsewhere.

Pema Chodron says most of our behavior is about running away from a feeling we can't abide. And yes, it's true, I hate feeling impatient and hurried and exasperated by my children. They don't seem to understand that the world is going to end if we don't follow our plans. I want it to be over. I don't want to be held captive by the dawdling and pointless resistance of these little people while I endeavor to get on with the day. The waiting and the dealing with petty problems en route to the front steps is hella boring. What am I supposed to do with my mind during these times?

I started to ask myself what would happen if I pretended the world wouldn't end if we were five minutes late. If Jonah went to school with no underwear once or twice. If the children brushed their teeth a couple hours after breakfast instead of the instant they swallowed their last bite of waffle. What would it be like if these transitions between events were the events themselves? If it was all one big event, or all one big transition?

In a Zen way, I could say that all moments are equally important, and equally unimportant.

Playing with this idea has been a tremendous relief for me, and for my kids. For one thing, it gives me something to do with my mind. And for another, it's having a good effect on the kids. Two nights ago, Jonah said to me, "Mom, you're not yelling anymore."

I looked up from my dinner and smiled. "You're right. I'm not. I'm really glad you noticed."

"Yeah," he said. "I think you're learning how not to yell."

I think I'll always be learning how not to yell. But that's okay, because I'm not in a hurry.

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?

Beer Night

"As soon as I'm a mom, I'm going to be drinking every day." -from hilarious new comedy, Notes from the Underbelly

My friend G and I get together once in awhile for adult conversation away from our four loud children. This usually involves me walking to her house, picking her up just in time for her to miss putting her children to bed, and the two of us walking to a nearby drinking establishment. We call this "Beer Night." The fact that we typically order foofy cocktails and dessert is irrelevant. G is a known lightweight and never drinks more than one beverage. I am a known lush with a sensitive stomach, so I keep it to two.

This Friday, while sunk into an Ultrasuede lounge chair at Liberty, I continued to drink. And drink. They were playing the Pixies and Al Green, for God's Sake, how could I possibly leave? Plus, we were getting into the juicy details of why it is deadly to belong to a social group of women, and how long we dated our husbands before certain relationship milestones were achieved, and other such topics that we mothers rarely have the opportunity to discuss in any depth due to noisiness of the children.

By the time I had reached the bottom of my third Sidecar, I slurred that I hadn't better drink anymore. G was on her fifteenth glass of water. She was ready to go home and probably ready to stop hearing me talk about whatever the hell I was talking about. We parted outside the bar, and, because I had been drinking, I walked over to QFC and bought a pack of American Spirit lights. While walking the ten or so blocks home, in the dark, and smoking one cigarette after another, I began to feel completely bludgeoned by drink. Naturally, I whipped out my cellphone and called a few friends. (One should never, never do this.)

Upon reaching my house, I stripped off my shoes and earrings and handbag and whatever else was on my body, trudged upstairs, and collapsed on the bed.

"Oh, Honey, you don't look good," said my beautiful and saintly husband.

"Yeah, I'n rilly fffucked," I mumbled. "Can I haff a towl a barff on?"

He ministered to me with water ("I need a sippy! I can siddpup. Can I haff a sippy?"), and a towel, and he lay beside me on the bed, chuckling and clucking.

"You're really attractive like this," he joked. I didn't even have the coordination to flip him off. I just had to take it.

I awoke to a rainy morning and a colossal headache. The alarm was going off. I had to get up and take Audrey to The Little Gym. I could not believe this was expected of me. But Matt, well, he was lucky enough to tear some ligament in his knee a few weeks back and so has to be excused form such duties. So I fucking went, in sweats and ponytail and hollow eyes, and took every opportunity to lie down on a soft mat. I began to develop a new understanding of why my parents never did anything like this with me. They were always hungover.

So, I've apologized to G, and the friends I called, and I hope I will remember all of this the next time I'm tempted to drink too much. Clearly my new meds have lowered my tolerance. Not such a bad thing, since I shouldn't really be drinking anyway. Too much alcoholism in my family, plus I'm a depressive, plus I have to get up in the morning and be on my game for the kids. Plus I learned some scary statistics from a psychiatrist I saw over the summer.

More on that later. For now, I must play with Jonah who is whining to be played with (he wears on me like a chronic disease), and shower and serve a nice brunch to my step mom and half brother.

Happy Spring.

Yoga in California

I'm standing on a wood floor under a peaked two-story ceiling. Sunlight is pouring into the room through six high, curved, Spanish-Colonial windows. Five professional yoga teachers and I have our mats positioned like the petals of a daisy. We stand facing into the center of the daisy, brains frantically working to make sense of what our teacher has just shouted at us to do. We are meant to take turns leading each other in a mini prenatal class. As students, we pretend to be pregnant and have some pregnancy ailment. Our teacher, Stephanie Keach, rings a bell. I spring into action like a dithering turtle.

"Ok," I say, frowning over my photocopied chart of prenatal poses and their possible modifications and adjustments. "Uh, so, we all have high blood pressure, right?" My my five phony, pregnant, pre-eclampsic students nod. "OK, let's stand in tadasana." Then I get all Aunusara-yoga on their asses, and start asking them to scoop their tailbones and spiral their thighs inward. "Keep your butt fluffy, though," I add. A few students smile, a few wrinkle their brows. I lead them into Warrior I. They sink into their bent front legs, and raise their hands high overhead like goddesses. Then I go around, and one by one, manually turn their upper arms inward to broaden their shoulders, then grasp the sides of their ribs and muscle their upper bodies up out of their lower backs. One by one, they groan. These are good groans. Thank you groans. I feel a great rush of satisfaction. I lead them into triangle pose, then rush to each student to do other adjustments. The bell rings, and my eight minute teaching session is up. Everyone bends over a scrap of paper and scribbles out an evaluation of my teaching. Now it's time for the woman next to me to practice her stuff.

She only adjusts a few people at a time. Mentally, I slap my forehead. Duh. Rushing around trying to adjust each student is silly. This is what caused me such anxiety when I taught creative writing to seventh graders. Attending to one while the others wait causes everyone to be irritated. Especially if they are seven months pregnant and hanging out in downward-facing dog until the next instruction.

OK, good, so I'm learning about teaching. Here are some other things the faux p.g. "students" have to say about my teaching:

"Nice and gentle, very joyful spirit." "No overall structure." "Good, strong, confident touch." "Perhaps you could guide us into poses more." These comments all make me grin.

After class, I tuck my rolled mat under my arm and walk to Cantwell's market to see about dinner. This is Santa Barbara, so the deli offerings include quesadillas stuffed with roasted eggplant and fresh basil. (California has a way of turning any food into something totally wrong but delicious. BBQ chicken pizza started here, as did sushi rolls that appropriate mayonnaise and avocado.) I get the quesadilla, a carton of roasted vegetables, and a large bottle of Fat Tire Ale. I walk back to the little B&B cottage I'm lodging in for the weekend, spread my foodstuffs out on a wrought-iron table on the patio, and have myself a little party for one. I feel relieved to have completed my first official yoga teacher training. I feel relieved to be alone in the garden of blooming red bouganvilla and heady jasmine. Alone in the fading sunshine. Wearing only a t-shirt in March.

I miss the children with all my internal organs, but not my brain. My brain is enjoying all this space, this blue sky, this nothing to do. It doesn't matter that I've got a long way to go as a teacher. It doesn't matter that my clothing is strewn about the cottage and I have to get up really early to board a plane and I don't yet know where to catch the bus to the airport. I slip off my shoes under the table and feel the rough stone of the patio under my bare feet. What a lovely place. The potted tea rose on the table rests in a tiny, white tart dish. There is a bit of rust forming on the table. A nippy ocean breeze sweeps through the courtyard.

It's the most perfect moment.

Lost in Transition

I'll be honest with you all. I've been trying hard to write something. I wrote a funny and offensive piece about practicing Kegels with two girlfriends in a crowded bar. Then I wrote something sincere about the way we think other people see us. I may still publish them, if I can find a point to them besides an effort to display my cleverness and sincerity.

But I found during my last breakdown that the best way back to a clear mind is to call bullshit on the bullshit.

Here's the straight shit:

1. All I can think about is the stuff that I hate, the people I hate, the life I hate.
2. I haven't showered in three days.
3. I look like a haggard single mom on food stamps (bless their hearts).
4. I feel like a haggard single mom on food stamps.
5. I drink too much.
6. General restlessness threatens to swallow my soul.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

My shrink asked me if this happens every spring. I looked up last year's journal. Here's what I found:

Things I am tired of [March 18, 2006]:

*Writing bullshit that never sees the light of day
*Melancholia
*Demanding children
*Never eating an entire meal in one sitting
*Being tired
*Being confused
*Being worn out
*Disliking myself
*Being sick
*Myself; I am desperately tired of myself and all my repetitious thoughts. I’ve thought about offing myself or becoming an alcoholic out of sheer boredom.
*Being required to care
*Being mad at my mother
*Despairing about my father
*Feeling empty, alone, and broken
*Laundry
*Dishes
*Clothing
*Makeup
*Grooming
*Entertaining children

Thereafter, things got much, much better. But now:

Things I am really tired of and/or scare the crap out of me [March 18, 2007]:

*Hanging out at the Science Center with kids and other tired, unwashed, rumpled, bored parents who also don't want to be there
*Answering to a child's comment or question every ten to 30 seconds
*Watching myself age rapidly
*Never sitting down for more than one minute at a time during a meal
*Never reading a book for more than ten minutes at a time
*Being interrupted constantly, no matter what I'm doing, be it reading, writing, sleeping, eating, taking a shower, going to the bathroom

So it's the usual stuff, more or less. Apparently motherhood, like depression, cannot be cured, only managed. How I've managed over the past year is I dropped a lot of useless ideas about parenting and hired a lot more childcare. What's not listed in the second excerpt is my prevailing sense of unease and boredom and loneliness. It would be there, but I got interrupted to make someone a sandwich.

(A new twist on the "things I hate" list is my terror of aging and old people. To wit: I went to a dance performance last week and was disturbed by the sea of white and grey heads all around me. All these soft-bellied old people clutching their tickets, fretting over finding the right seats, looking irritated beyond comprehension when someone needed to get past them after they'd sat down. During the performance, in the middle of one particularly quiet, erotic solo, a baldy near me turned around to hiss at the fellow behind him to stop kicking his chair. "Eh?" the fellow said. "I said, would you please stop kicking my chair!" The entire audience, probably even the dancer, heard this. Lord, smite me with a bolt of lightning if my life ever comes to this! I thought.)

So, I arrive again at the manic-depressive state of melancholia and restlessness. I shall endeavor to enjoy my mercurial mood, or at the very least, learn to ride it. Sit in the nice little yoga space I've made for myself downstairs, close my eyes, and do nothing about it. To do nothing about it is to triumph. To see this period as a shift and a transition rather than a crisis requiring divorce or grad school or some other thing that will make the feeling go away, that's the real practice. I'm lost in this mish mash. There's no other way for me to be right now.

The Path of the Medicated Warrior

I waited exactly 14 days. Then, on Friday, I gobbled a 40 milligram dose of citalopram.

I realized that while it was a worthy goal not to say "fuck," or "fucking" around the children anymore, the fact that I was increasingly compelled to do so reminded me for the millionth time that depression is not a matter of self-control.

I spoke to Dr. Clark on the phone.

"How are you doing on this dosage?" she asked.

"Crying all the time, lots of outbursts, feeling like I want to rip off my own skin," I said.

"Mm-hm," she said. "Any thoughts of suicide?"

Only once, while rocking back and forth on the floor at my friend's house, with my forehead pressed to my knees, but it was nothing. "No," I said.

She prescribed Wellbutrin in addition to my regular dose of Celexa. How this is supposed to help with what the medical professionals call "sexual side-effects" is unclear to me. I think it's unclear to the medical professionals, too. But whatever. I'm game.

Maybe if I was single and 23 the decision between being semi-orgasmic or crazy wouldn't be quite the no-brainer it is now. It's fine to be nightmare in your 20's. Some fellas even dig it. But now when I go off the rails it truly dampens my husband's spirit. And damn, I've got kids to raise now. I've got important shit to do, too, like enjoy vacations in Mexico and do half-moon pose without a block and post pictures on MySpace. (Not to mention teach pregnant ladies how to relax when they feel like cows, and contribute to the good of humanity, and basically be a bright star whenever possible.) I don't have the space to wander in those woods anymore. I'm intimately familiar with them, and they never lead anywhere.

I'm back on the path of wellness.

Day 11

This, my friends, is what I've been doing a lot of lately. It's quiet, it's meditative, and it burns off my abundant aggression. I can go from utter self-loathing and fury to an open heart and humility. In one hour. Even if I don't stay in that state of grace for very long, my soul gets a taste of what this feels like. And so does my brain.

I want my brain to be ingrained with this state, the memory of it to be permanently scarred into the tissue. I need something to remember, to go back to. I reach points where it seems the only logical thing to do is run away from home or become a tremendous alcoholic. That's when it's time to go back to the mat.

My teacher said once, a long time ago, that no matter what confined state you're in, mental, emotional or physical, do what you can to sense one sliver of ease, one iota of space to move into. Feel for the merest opening. Then move into it. Then see if you can sense a little more space, a little more ease. Relax into that. And on and on.

This is what I do in my yoga practice, especially when my brain is roiling about. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have my practice to come back to, to pour my zappy, disjointed, animal energy into. I can depend on my practice to deliver me, for a few minutes on the very worst day at least, from blind wildness.

At 20 mg. of citalopram, life is more vivid. I can cry again. I feel low moods and irritation more acutely. I can't really say if pleasure is more pleasurable, or if highs feel higher now. The circumstances of my life over the past couple of weeks have been such that I haven't had the chance to feel those things. But I'm crossing my fingers.

(And my knees, ankles, wrists and elbows.)

Day Six on Reduced Meds

I'm all fire and love for humanity in the morning. By late afternoon, I want to tear off my own skin.

The experts agree one should give the brain two weeks to adjust to any changes in these kinds of medications. So I must wait before drawing any conclusions. And then, if I'm still a loon, I should get rolfed or acupunctured or massaged on a regular basis. I'll do anything.

I guess if the rolfing and Chinese medicine don't help, I'll have to experiment with some drug cocktails. Hate to think I' might have to be on this stuff forever.

The very worst thing about not being emotionally stable is how I relate to my kids. I truly lose interest in them. That causes them to run at me full-force with body slams and frog leaps, and otherwise make sure my attention is on them. They sense when I am slipping away from them. Their desperation sends me further underground.

Maybe I'm just not the maternal type.

How to Be Complicit in Someone's Death

"So how's Grandma doing?" I asked my mom over the phone.

She sighed. "Well, she won't use her walker, and she's back up to smoking a pack and a half a day."

"Unbelievable."

"Yeah, I know. I get so furious at her every time I bring her cigarettes over to her house that I just want to throw them at her."

Mm-hm. I suppose not buying them for her in the first place would be out of the question.

Day One of Reduced Meds

This morning I shook five pills out of a bottle onto my black granite kitchen counter top and proceeded to slice each one in half with a table knife.

"I'm tired of being stupid," I explained to Matt. I covered the knife and pill with a hand to prevent post-chop scatter. Chop. 40 mgs became 20. I sprinkled the tiny half pills into the compartments of my weekly pill dispenser. I have to use this thing that is usually reserved for people with dementia because the pills make me stupid.

Well, to be fair to the drugs, "stupid" is probably an exaggeration. Forgetful is more like it, and flaky, and, oh yeah, unable to achieve certain states that one expects to enjoy with one's partner. One can only put up with these things for so long.

My doctor gave me the okay to taper down. 20 mgs for 2 weeks, maybe a month, then down to 10. Then see how I'm doing. Presumably, if I find myself screaming at the children or hiding in the guest room to sob, I'll be upping the dose. But I am willing to experiment now. I want all of my faculties again.

It's possible that I have worn new paths in my brain deep enough that my thoughts follow the new patterns by habit. The last time I went off meds, I did just fine for five years.

It could happen again.

This is the Way it Goes

It was a week of extremes: kids dripping green snot, Audrey up 5-6 times per night, sitter on reduced schedule, Nana busy with bridge and whatnot, umpteen hours of yoga training for me, and, oh, yes, Valentine's Day (a holiday that is rotten to the core and only fun for little kids). Plus, Jonah was anticipating our trip to CA by asking every few seconds, "How many days now until we go on the airplane?"

But the really crazy thing was that my grandmother entered the hospital. She was doing so poorly that my mother was inspired to call me and tell me if I wanted to see Grandma again, now was the time.

After hanging up the phone, I walked up two flights of stairs to the attic, where Jonah and Matt sat playing with a train set.

"I have to go to Centralia tomorrow," I said. "My grandma is not well. My mom said I better go."

I wanted to say, "She's dying," but since Jonah was present, I refrained. Instead, I tried to make the gravity of the situation clear in my hushed and steady delivery.

"Oh, no, is she dying?" he asked.

"Great Grandma Lorraine is dying?" asked Jonah.

My eyes popped out of my head as I gave Matt a look that spoke volumes about his honed skills of subtlety and my opinion about that.

Matt cringed and said, "Jesus...I'm sorry."

"She's pretty sick," I said, kneeling down in front of Jonah.

"Is she sick from smoking?"

Matt and I exchanged incredulous glances. "Yes," I admitted. I didn't know for sure if that was true, but one can surmise that fluid in the lungs and a failing heart weren't brought on by a lifetime of healthy living. It's no wonder Jonah picked up on this, since my mom bitches constantly about my grandma's smoking and I bitch constantly about her smoking. He's asked a lot of questions about it, such as the great and obvious question of all time: "Why do they do it if it's going to make them sick?"

I still haven't figured out a way to explain in clear terms that we grownups are bonkers.

Enlightenment Not Guaranteed

So I spend 13 hours this weekend at a yoga immersion at my sweet, beloved studio with all of my sweet, beloved teachers. I sit on a wood floor in a cross-legged position for long stretches and learn about sanskrit, yoga history, why we chant, and how to sequence a practice. Combined, I do 3-4 hours of asana and meditation and breathing exercises. Leaving class today, the last day of this session, my husband calls to tell me I need to go pick up Jonah from Nana's house because he forgot to leave the car seat with her last night when he dropped him off. So I drive through Husky basketball traffic from Capitol Hill to the U Village area. I play "I'm Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks about three times during this trip, singing at the top of my lungs as if I were performing in an arena packed with screaming fans. I glance in my mirror at the car behind me. It's Meg, one of my teachers, and she is watching me and smiling really big.

When I get home with Jonah, I open a bag of chips and begin sorting through the mail I have ignored for two days. Audrey, the napless wonder, is racing around the house like the Energizer Bunny, cackling and knocking shit off surfaces. Jonah keeps demanding paper clips to unclog his glitter pens. Matt is asking me if I will bake the chicken that's been loitering in the fridge for days. The due date on it has passed. I think about this for one second, then wash the thing and rip out its innards. I open a piece of mail that tells me I am naughty for not responding by mail to the summons I got two weeks ago to be on a grand jury, every other Wednesday and Thursday, not to exceed 18 months. I fill out the form. Matt is talking to me about another form I need to fill out, something about voter registration for some election in March. I don't know whether this will be a local school bond vote or the presidential primaries. Matt and I get into an argument about why I always put these things off, when all it takes is a signature and a stamp, yadda yadda yadda. I go out and harvest the last of the dying parsley. I chop parsley and rosemary and thyme and garlic. My step mom calls. I crack a bottle of Stella. Step mom invites me over for dinner next week. I politely decline because next week is a nightmare.

I grab my beer, tell Matt I need a few minutes of downtime while the chicken roasts, and immediately come up here to the attic, light a cigarette and swill my beer.

I wait for enlightenment.

Give Up

Last night, Matt and I went to a rock club to see Dan Savage read from The Commitment and Neal Pollack read from Alternadad. Alternadad is a book in which Pollack writes of his angst about losing street cred now that he's a parent. Apparently, he grew up in a suburb with nerdy, stable parents who drank highballs at cocktail hour and played golf on the weekends. He couldn't fathom what a "cool" parent would look like, so he assumed there was no such thing. This was a problem when it came time for him, a self-proclaimed hipster, to become a dad. How was he going to pull it off?

(I can tell him all about cool parents. You know, the ones who let you drink tumblers of champagne on New Year's Eve and hold your hair back for you later when you vomit? Sooo cool. The ones who smoke so much pot they can't remember why you shouldn't? The ones who are so open about sex that you have to hear about it all the livelong day? Oooh, yes. Growing up with cool parents was grrrrrreat! It was so great that most of my life I never wanted to have children.

Not that I'm bitter. Because of my parents, I got my binge-drinking out of the way before I left high school and delayed having sex because I was terrified of getting knocked up young like my mom. So how could I complain?)

I empathize with old Neal. I have expended a great amount of energy on the same question (which may have been more ridiculous on my part due to my lack of actual coolness). It's a common concern.

I remember a woman in my graduate program telling me, wistfully, that she envied the moms who dressed in stretch pants and Keds. She herself cut her own hair, shopped in thrift stores, and made a personality trait out of her super-alternativeness. She was also, at the time, the mother of a small toddler, and pregnant.

"Wouldn't it be nice to just not care anymore?" she said as we drove past one such unhip, uncaring mom pushing a stroller up East John Street. Inwardly, I sort of rolled my eyes at her hipster snobbery. I mean, God, if you have to try that hard to be cool, then aren't you really trying too hard?

(I understood the larger concept, though. I was battling my own issues about becoming a teacher and having to buckle down in grad school. I couldn't even smoke pot anymore, because it was too expensive and it made me too stupid in class the next day. While my friends went to noisy rock shows and my roommate drank $50 bottles of wine, I was reading Piaget, writing papers about multiculturalism, and shopping for my bananas on sale at Safeway.)

Last night, my one question for Neal Pollack was, how do you know when you are just trying too hard and it's time to quit? Sean Nelson, the MC for the evening, beat me to it. During the post-book-reading Nelson/Pollack tete-a-tete, he asked Pollack a related question: Is it even possible to stay cool once you become a parent?

"At a certain point," Pollack admitted, "you just have to throw up your hands."

"And drive the Passat wagon? Metaphorically?" said Sean.

"Not even metaphorically," said Pollack.

Soon the standing crowd of people near the bar turned their attentions to each other. Poor Pollack stood onstage, eyes afire at the crowd's impudence, and interrupted his own story about a holier-than-thou vegetarian mom he and his kid encountered at the LA aquarium to shout, "Hey! Do you guys just want to drink?"

I felt for him. We were in a club, and a band was about to come onstage, and there were alcoholic beverages to imbibe and cute people to look at, and suddenly the whole parenting discussion just wasn't that funny or interesting anymore. And Pollack became just…a dad. Who was coming to realize it was time to get off the stage.

I guess that pretty much answered my question.

So you think you're doing better?

I am doing better. I am doing so much better that I am actually considering a professional commitment. In light of this consideration, I went to a prenatal yoga class with my friend Robin the other night to observe and pick the teacher's brain. When she started correcting my postures, I had an interesting new experience.

I say "interesting" because that is the nonjudgmental word I use to remark on a sudden emotional jumps in yoga practice. Such as, "Hmm, it's interesting that my teacher is asking us to stay in chatturanga for this long. It's interesting that I just thought of my teacher as a bitch." That kind of thing. It helps me not get mad at myself for having a response, so I can just have the response and then move on with my life. It also helps me not grasp at positive feelings, like, "I feel so strong and awesome right now! There are rays shooting out of my body! I can conquer the world!" So that has to fall under the category of "interesting," too. Whatever it is, it is temporary and I don't have to do anything about it.

Anyway, so I'm in this class with a bunch pregnant ladies. I'm there to observe them and the teacher. I'm doing a totally half-assed yoga practice while craning my neck to watch all the mamas do their pigeon-prep poses or what have you. And, to be honest, I am feeling arrogant. I mean, come on, with all the training I've been doing, this has got to be a piece of cake, right?

"Susie, is it?" says the teacher, coming across the wood floor toward me. I am on my mat with my shoulders and feet on the floor in bridge pose. She kneels down to grasp my ankles. "Move your feet more parallel and a little farther away from your hips," she says, manually placing my body into the correct position. I allow this, while thinking, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real teacher!" I lift my hips higher. I squeeze my butt really hard, which you just aren't supposed to do, to get my hips up really high, to prove that I know what I am doing. Then I feel icky. I think, wow, she must think I'm a total nimrod and probably shouldn't be a prenatal yoga instructor after all. Why do I think I could be a teacher? I'm not really that good…

Etcetera, etcetera.

I haven't worried much about how "good" I am for a very long time. I started yoga with the knowledge that I was uncoordinated and hopelessly high strung, and never thought too much about getting "good." And my big life practice over the past year has been to let go of measuring myself against other people at all. (A lifelong practice, but you have to start somewhere.)

Now that I'm in the process of becoming a teacher, of putting myself in a position to be judged, serious doubts are coming up. Do I really want to have to judge myself? Isn't this process against the whole reason why I practice yoga?

Maybe. I guess I will find out. In the meantime, what if I could really encourage an open heart toward myself? My practice is, if nothing else, totally sincere, and I do believe I've had incredible training from my beloved teacher. Can I remember that I want to teach yoga to pregnant ladies for the same reason I lead new parent support groups? That it's not about being an expert, but being a good shepherd and a supportive presence? Can I continue to retrain my brain this way, and really cultivate fearlessness?

Hell, maybe if I can learn that a little more, I can go off drugs. Wouldn't life really be an adventure then?

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.

Am I Done Yet?

My shrink:
Same time next week?

Me:
Well, you know I've been thinking about cutting back. What if we skip a week?

[Silence]

Me:
You're smiling.

My shrink:
We've been here before.

Me:
You don't think I should cut back.

My shrink:
I think we should talk about it next week.

Mexico Diary (Part I)

Cabo San Lucas, Baja del Sur, Mexico

Jan 9

This place is a paradise of easy pleasure. Easy pleasure is suspect…except when I have two kids and sunlight deprivation. Bring it on, Mexico. Drench me in Pina Colada, dry sunshine, and obsequious poolside service. I need you.

Thanks to Sara at Wax-On Capitol Hill, I am sleek and hairless in the parts that matter, thus not worrying about that as I go everywhere in my swim suit. (Typically the only people who see my normally European grooming habits are my husband and the people at my yoga studio. And some of the women there don't even wax their mustaches. But I digress.) I'm white but intend to stay that way. Didn't even mess with the suntan-in-a bottle. Why bother? I'm just one out of a hundred fish-belly-colored gringos on Playa Medano today.

Here at the resort, there are four resident flamingoes standing around a small pond, dipping their beaks into the water and emitting soulful moans every so often. I'm not sure the coastal desert is their natural habitat. I'm going to pretend it is so I can enjoy looking at them. Same with the green and turquoise budgies flapping around in a soaring cage by the pool.

Audrey is all bravado and curiosity in the water. The only thing she wants to do is "swim." Here's how she swims: flaps her hands and feet while I support her shoulders and hips just under the surface of the water. Her face beams with pride. "I swimming!" she crows.

Why did I wait so long to come here?


Jan. 11

Beautiful Ellya the concierge helped arrange a coconut birthday cake for Matt. He's 39 today. It says "Feliz Cumpleanos Matteo."

I also arranged a sunset cruise to celebrate. The four of us took a water taxi from the beach to the marina. After I sent us walking in the wrong direction around the very large, G-shaped waterfront, we discovered the correct dock and that our boat had left an hour earlier. Guess I left my suspicion of easy pleasure AND my ability to read boat schedules back at the customs line in San Jose del Cabo. No matter: it had begun to rain and a cruise out on the open water would have been very unpleasant. Instead, we went to dinner.

The restaurant was centered around a courtyard. Just off the kitchen in a dim corner, a woman stood behind a counter pressing balls of dough into a two-sided, cast-iron, round tortilla press. A hot grill sizzled with a dozen tortillas. The woman stood over this grill, surrounded by mounds of coarse-looking dough and stacks of fresh, warm rounds. Audrey and I watched her for awhile. She never looked up.

At this, the best restaurant we'd been to so far, the kids behaved their worst. In their defense I have to say it was hard finding a bite of anything that wasn't too spicy for them. The food had not been bastardized to please the turista palate. Audrey insisted on sitting on my lap, Jonah whined that his leche tasted funny, and both of them grew distrustful of anything I put on a fork and tried to coax them into eating.

We took a taxi back to the hotel. I couldn't stomach another half hour of walking the gauntlet of Mexican hustlers and fat white men in golf shirts blocking the tiny sidewalks downtown. Plus, Jonah kept trying to pick up really scary things off the ground. A crack vial. An old band-aid. Etcetera. I just wanted to get there, get the kids to bed, and drink some tequila on the balcony.

Jan 12

If I may be allowed a gross generalization about the Cabo locals: they love children. Everywhere we go, Audrey attracts shameless flirtation from Mexican women and men. Today a woman standing near us talking to her companion absently reached down and stroked Jonah's hair. We smiled in surprise, but she never even caught our eye. Just petted Jonah and kept talking.

This was not so much the case on our sunset cruise tonight. It turned out to be kind of a bust – although the 40-something drunk ladies doing the Macarena with the hot waiters probably wouldn't say so. The liquor flowed freely from an endless supply of flimsy plastic cups. If you were lucky enough to be drunk before the buffet was served, then you didn't care how drippy and lardy the frijoles were, or that the "queso" was really congealed Velveeta. (I think the chef must have been Mexican by way of Kansas.) I stayed sober in order to keep the children from careening over the sides of the boat or tumbling down the vertiginous stairs that led below deck. Or being hit by a drunk gringo who lost his sea legs as we entered a small rain and wind squall. To be honest, it was all a little scary.

But we saw whales. And we idled in front of the awe-inspiring rock formation called Land's End. (Land's End and El Arco are what you see in every picture of Los Cabos.) I looked in vain for the formation that is supposed to look like a group of hooded monks, but couldn't elbow my way through the people taking pictures and keep hold of Jonah's hand.

As we sailed back toward the marina, much later than I wished, I watched the drunks dancing to "My Humps" and thought, man, if my mom was on this trip with us, she'd be right there." Then a fortyish woman in white walking shorts and Keds started gyrating around a flagpole. No, I thought, she'd be right there.

School Daze

My kindergarten sat on a large landscaped lot about 10 blocks from my stucco house in Milpitas, CA. I went there because it was free. I crossed a four-lane street with traffic lights by myself to get there, then found my way to a painted green line on the expansive playground blacktop, where I waited for the bell to ring.

My son gets lost going to the bathroom in our house. This is one reason why, despite the fact that there are other options, I am lobbying for him to attend his default neighborhood public school for kindergarten next year. It's two blocks away. I can stand at the end of my yard and watch him make it to the crossing guard.

Another reason is that I just can't bring myself to get into the kindergarten hysteria that descends upon a certain Seattle demographic this time of year. There's this attitude that if you don't get accepted into one of the "good" public schools, you must do dire things to afford a private school or your kid will never learn how to read.

"OMIGOD did you get your app in for [blank]????" In the Little Gym class lobby, the preschool parking lot, and the book group, it is THE topic of conversation right now. I hear many expressions of fear, angst, disgust at the application fees. There is much eye-rolling at the non-aligned deadlines of Seattle Public School applications and those of virtually every private grade school in town. Parents swap test score data and free-and-reduced-lunch numbers when they run into each other with their dogs and kids and paper cups of coffee.

Some of these parents are friends, good people that I respect and like. Yet the whole thing gets my Irish up. I hate the notion that where you go to school makes you who you are. I hate the attitude of many parents that their kid will be, by default, elite or advanced or gifted. (I really hated this when I was a teacher. Those parents were a pain in my ass.)

This feeling took hold for me when Jonah was going to a little co-op down in a fancy zip code. The kids were 1-2 years old. It was a play class. The kids wandered around like cats, exploring objects, bumping against one another, climbing on pillows. The teacher sang songs with hand motions and made each kid feel special. It was lovely and developmentally appropriate. But some parents were pissed because the teacher wasn't using flash cards.

It's not all about the fucking flash cards.

Anyway, what makes some kids so special that they get to go to exclusive schools, and other kids not so special? I mean, who do these parents think they are?

This came up in a conversation yesterday with my husband. He blinked at me as if I had just told him I wanted Jonah to go to an elementary school that does weapons pat-downs at the door.

"I don't understand this," he said, shaking his head. "You complain about the crappy schools you went to and how your parents weren't involved, and now when you have some options..."

I know, I know. But look - I come from a place where to ask for something better is to invite a swift kick in the ass. Who do you think you are? Once I brought up the idea that I might change to a different high school, and my mother threw a screechy tantrum.

Maybe if I had my druthers Jonah would be learning to read while taking backpacking trips with Outward Bound. For the next ten years. (Of course, he'd have to be strapped with a GPS unit.)He would be completely out of the normal school loop until it came time to apply to college.

Because for me, the normal loop sucks. In the normal loop, life becomes all about the flash cards, the tests, and where you are in the pecking order of the lunchroom. I have never flourished in this kind of environment.

My husband, however, has and does. He was the kind of kid for whom public schools are made. He blossoms in regimented environments. He enjoys competition. And if it weren't for those traits, and quite possibly the great schools he attended that helped him develop his large brain, we'd be fuckin' broke.

So I guess we just start trying stuff and see what happens. In the meantime, I need to relax my judgment. Stop thinking about what's best for Society and think about what's best for Jonah. It is okay to do that. It's good to do that. It makes me less angry to do that. I don't need to be fighting these old ghosts.

Bitch Lit

Blogs are supposed to be for ranting, right? I have one this morning, inspired by a quote in a week-old article in the New York Times about the rise of "mom lit." Mom lit is, apparently, light and frothy narrative about the perils of choosing an Italian stroller in Manhattan. Or something. Anyway, it picks up where "chick lit" left off. Jill Kargman, author of the forthcoming "Momzilla," describes her readers as savvy and hip and, one has to infer, somehow better.

"They don't feel like the crusty, over-the-hill J.C. Penney moms with the tapestry vest," says she.

My first thought: Bitch.

My second thought: Why are publishers giving so much shelf space to these bitches?

Every mother who does the daily grind with her kids knows that we are all about one vomit-stain away from giving up on the artifice of looking good. If that means shopping at J.C. Penney for sturdy wash-and-wear items that are cheap enough to discard without guilt after the breast milk leaks through the breast pad for the 400th time, then so be it. Shit, who do we have to impress during the day?

Not Jill Kargman. I hate to think what she might say about my second-day hair and (gasp!) last year's shoes.

Did that sound judgmental?

Dirty Laundry

At my last book group people were talking about how staying informed can be a problem these days, since we have so little time to read and listening to NPR in the car anymore is a nightmare.

"The news is just...inappropriate," said one friend. I snorted.

"Jonah doesn't pay attention to what's on the radio. My biggest problem is he doesn't shut up for one second. I can't hear a thing."

A comment like this doesn't go unmarked by the gods of parenthood, who listen attentively for such phrases as "My child sleeps through the night!" and "I think he's almost potty trained!" Upon which, they laugh heartily and throw fireballs down on our heads.

Anyway, the other day I was innocently driving somewhere with my 4-year-old, I turned on NPR. Immediately came a report about the latest ruling in the Duke rape case.

"The judge ruled today that the victim was not raped, but she was penetrated with a male sex organ."

My hand flew to the radio knob. "Jesus," I whispered. "Jonah, want to sing "Jingle Bells"? I asked brightly. Not being much of a singer, he didn't answer. I waited for a question about male sex organs. He said nothing. A few minutes later, I turned the radio on again.

A reporter discussed whether Dick Cheney would testify in the Valerie Plame case, the one in which she was outed as a CIA agent, allegedly because her husband criticized the Bush administration for lying about weapons of mass destruction.

"What's a mass destruction?" Jonah piped up from the back seat. OK, I thought, this is easy.

"It's a big bomb," I said.

Now, he doesn't know from bombs. I felt pretty sure his mind would be sort of boggled and he'd move on to talking about whether the draw bridge was going to go up as we crossed the University Bridge.

"A bomb like a mole bomb? The kind that kills moles?"

This summer, my dad had taken Jonah on a mole patrol through his garden. I found out later this involved a lengthy catalogue of ways to kill moles. This made me wrinkle my nose, but since Jonah didn't seem disturbed I forgot about it.

But real bombs? I couldn't possibly explain to him what a bomb really is; it's too terrible. Or biological weapons? Unthinkable.

"Yes," I said. "Like that."

As we were parking the car, along came the story about fifty nurses in Bulgaria (Romania?) who injected infants in their care with the HIV virus.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed, throwing myself on the radio knob.

"What? Why did you say oh my god?"

"There were- there were - uh, some bad nurses," I blubbered, getting out of the car.

"Like at Dr. Render's office?" he asked.

"Yes. I mean no! That nurse is a good nurse."

"What is a bad nurse?"

"Let's go in here and get a big cinnamon roll!"

"I like that!"

Jesus.

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.

Goin' on a Bear Hunt

Goin' on a bear hunt (clap, clap, clap, clap)
I'm not afraid (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Comin' to a wheat field (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Can't go around it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Gotta go through it (clap, clap, clap, clap)
Swish swish swish swish swish swish

Having reached the other side of the River Styx, at least for now, it is easy to say that what one goes through as a new mother is temporary but unavoidable. I knew this in the thick of things, too - but I railed against the unfairness of it. There was simply no way around the mental instability, broken sleep, physical exhaustion, and emotional desert of caring for two tiny children. It made me weak and classically female in a way I couldn't accept. I wanted to blame someone for what was causing me to suffer. Capitalism! The Patriarchy! My mother! There had to be a way out. But it was - and is - just what it is. Motherhood. On the side of Life, I can say this without bitterness. On the side of Death, I said it with a wail: "My children are killing me!"

One way to not let my children kill me was to pursue life outside the family. This required some sacrifice from them (if spending time away from their screaming, withdrawn mother was really a sacrifice). One evening a week, I led a suport group for new parents. Now, before you laugh at this image of the blind leading the the blind, consider this: the helping professions are lousy with depressives and addicts. Everyone knows the joke that not a few crazy people train as psychotherapists, recovered cokeheads become addiction counselors, and the ranks of teachers are packed with the suffering and the wounded. I fit right in. Being fresh off the battlefield, I wanted these sleep-deprived, paralyzed-by-worry parents to know that I understood them. That they were not alone. That somehow I could help them avoid the crazy-making mental ruts I had gotten into as a new parent.

They seemd to resent my presumption. I had forgotten that new parents tend to think their experience is unique. I had forgotten the grand fantasies they/we have that we will triumph where others have failed. That with our education, coolness, professional life, insight, whatever, we will Do This Right. And I had forgotten that I didn't get out of my rut because someone gave me the right advice.

I noticed, after a few more meetings, that when I released my agenda, shut up, and allowed them to share their failings and misgivings with each other (hesitantly, at first: no one wants to be outed as a substandard parent), they softened and began to lean on one another. I saw that emotional quagmire is part of many parents' experience, and there just ain't no way around it. Squish squish squish squish.

Now I'm leading a second group. These mothers are showing me the same thing: Okay, no one is ever going to solve this basic problem of the impossibility of being a mother. Not the right book, not the right exercise regimen, not even the most stellar partner. So how are we going to have reasonable lives? One of the moms said, "You have to do what makes you least crazy." How did she get so smart so fast?

Last night, my friend Vicki, who has a 4-year-old and a newborn, listened to me yak about my latest career idea, and then sighed. "I look forward to being in that position again to even think about those things," she said. I was blown away by her wisdom and the gentleness with which she treated herself in that comment. I didn't have that kind of intelligence or peace when I was still nursing my second child. I was angry as hell and constantly battering myself for not having a job (even though I didn't really want one).

"There's time in the universe for everything I want to do," she continued, sipping a nonalcoholic, lactose-free beverage in the bar at Atlas Foods. "If I can't do something now, I just put it back out there and have faith that I'll come back to it."

Amen, Sister.

But I'll have a champagne cocktail with that thought.

Signs of Life

We just spent a week in Boston with my in-laws and I didn't have to take even one Xanax. I believe this is a sign of spiritual and cerebral health.

Other signs of health:

• There is a reasonable amount of frozen food piled in the freezer drawer. When I have to rearrange the boxes of frozen waffles, Trader Joe's tamales and assorted Processed Organic Crap every time I open the freezer, just so I can shut it again, all is not well in the village. Likewise when the refrigerator shelves boast nothing but a few whithered carrots and a jar of mayonnaise. If there is no frozen food and the fridge is stuffed with fresh produce and meats, I'm either exceedingly energetic or about to go mad.
• The ratio of time I spend on housewifery and on-the-clock mothering is equal to or less than the time I spend writing, doing yoga, or dancing around the attic with Harvey Danger on my iPod.
• The strength and fortitude to "waste" baby sitter time on the above.
• When my feisty 2-year-old starts torturing her big brother, I knock her down with tickles and start a rolicking game of chase with them both throughout the house. This happens far less often than I'd like to say. But it replaces the depressed behaviors, such as yelling and hiding in the bathroom.

Last night we got home in the middle of the night after ten hours of travel and a drive from Sea-Tac in freezing rain. Matt and I put the children to bed directly, then scarfed frozen junk food (Amy's Quiche Florentine) while standing at the kitchen island. We continued our snippy argument over who was more of a jerk in the airport.

"You know," he said, "sometimes when you get tired, you act like you're about 12 years old."

I laughed.

Health.

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.

Let Yourself Off the Hook Today

Still, nothing. Here's another relevant passage from my journal last spring, and something to remember as the days grow shorter:


When I was in Oakland, Jonna and I went to two yoga classes taught by her teacher, Baxter Bell. He said something so profound during a meditation. He said, “You may notice that your mind wanders off. That’s fine, you don’t need to be upset about it. Just lead it back here. No need to be mad at yourself. Just come back, over and over. Let yourself off the hook, over and over.”

I realized, that’s what I have been trying to learn over these last few months. How to let myself off the hook, over and over. It’s a practice. It’s not as if you do it one time, and now you’re ready for the world. It’s like building a muscle, or stretching a muscle. It happens over time.

Being a mother presents a unique opportunity to see oneself as a failure in all respects. After all, can you ever love your children enough? Can you ever be there for them enough? But if ever there was a job in which you need to let yourself off the hook every day, it's parenting. Otherwise, perspective is easily lost and pretty soon you're popping Xanax because the two-year-old won't eat.

Twelve-steppers know that you change your mind one day at a time. You recommit every day, you practice every day, and you only expect it of yourself today. Tomorrow is tomorrow and you can face it tomorrow. For today, do today. It’s a wonderful way to set yourself up for success. Changing behavior requires building upon small successes.

I learned that with dog-training and kid-teaching. Do it until they have a measure of success, and then stop and do it again tomorrow. It's a good tactic to use on myself.

Wuv

I am happy to report that life is good at the moment. I have child care, I have a writing project, I have health.

Thus, nothing to blog about today.

Here is a passage I wrote last winter about Jonah, age 3 at the time, during a rare period in which he wasn't sucking the life out of me:

My son and I are having a tender love affair. All day long, he smiles at me, caresses me, and complements my appearance. “I wuv that toft tweater you’re wearing,” he says often, then pets my arm or breast. “Will you pway wiv me?” he asks. “It’s nice to be together. I’m so happy to see you.”

Every afternoon we hang out on the sofa and engage in what can only be called canoodling. We snuggle, bump foreheads, give Eskimo kisses, and pat one another. Sometimes he lies on top of me and rests his head on my shoulder like he did as an infant, and other times we spoon each other and talk about things like whether bunnies are nice.

The longer this goes on, and the more Jonah keeps saying, “I like Mommy better,” to Matt, Matt is getting anxious. Today we were at the dog park, and Jonah expressed some desire to walk next to me or something, and Matt said wryly, “I think you have a new boyfriend.”

“I know,” I sighed. “But it’s perfectly natural.”

“It’s perfectly Oedipal,” he said.

I do draw the line at him caressing my breasts. “Please leave my breasts alone,” I say. “Those are private.” Of course, he’s just as happy to touch my shoulder. It seems to be all the same to him. He just wants a piece of me.

This morning he came padding into my bedroom after Audrey and Matt had gone downstairs. “Can I snuggle wiv you?” he asked. I mumbled and he crawled in bed beside me. He petted my hair, and talked to me, until finally I snapped that he could only stay if he was quiet and still. The next thing I knew, it was 20 minutes later. He’d actually let me sleep! I turned over to find him staring at me. “I was quiet,” he said. “Shall we go downstairs now?”

They say children’s personalities are basically formed by the time they’re 3. I will be happy if that’s true in his case.

Disclaimer

Readers, I have just gone back and looked at my first month of posts and realize that it sounds as if I was beating my kids. I was not. Just so we're clear.

What's Your Apgar Score?

For those of you who haven't read it, The New Yorker's latest issue includes an article about the industrialization of childbirth ("The Score," by Atul Gawande). It's a refreshingly non-judgmental approach, written by a surgeon, and includes the history of obstetrics and an explanation for the prevalence of non-emergency C-section deliveries. All fascinating stuff. It doesn't judge doctors or patients, just presents the history of obstetrics-related phenomena from a surgeon's perspective.

One thing that really blew me away was learning about the birth of the Apgar score. As many of you will recall, the Apgar is the score that your baby gets at one minute and five minutes after birth, rating such things as color, breathing, crying, etc. Apparently, before there was such a thing to standardize the way doctors chose to treat (or not treat, as the case may be) infants upon their arrival in the world, the obstetrician would decide subjectively whether the baby was worth saving or not. As we now know, a baby's Apgar score can be very low at one minute and very high at five, particularly if steps have been taken to improve breathing and body temperature right away. Babies were, if I am to believe this writer, simply left to die if they were born blue, too small, or malformed. A woman named Virginia Apgar, an anasthesiologist in the 1950's, was so appalled at this practice that she devised a score for nurses to rate the condition of newborns.

The Apgar score changed everything. Suddenly all kinds of new data were being observed and collected about newborns, and now there was a way to measure - with a number - how an infant was doing at one and five minutes. It measured color (blue or pink), heart rate, vigorous breaths, and movement of all four limbs. These numbers could be compared and used as learning tools for doctors. Neonatal intensive-care units appeared. Prenatal ultrasound became common. Fetal heart monitors became standard. As Gawande, points out, hundreds of adjustments were made in the practice of obstetrics over the years since, to produce what is now called "the obstetrics package."

Ok, so the average hospital birth is full of things that most of us would rather not deal with. I don't even want to get into whether a hospital birth is bad or good, whether it's best to go with a midwife at home (back in the days when doctors didn't wash their hands between performing autopsies and examining delivering mothers, that was definitely your best option) or submit to a totally medical experience when one may not be necessary. What about what happens later?

What was your score one day after giving birth, and five days after giving birth? What about five months after? How can anyone tell? Who is to rate a mother's well-being? It seems an important part of the equation is being left out here. I believe that unless a mother is actively crying all day and night or talking about killing herself, people tend to look past us to the infant. Or just look past us.

What if there was an Apgar score for moms? What kinds of things would you want rated? What could be done to maintain your health and sanity after childbirth, and into the early years?

Hello, I Love You

You know how when you parent, you don't see the results for years sometimes? Or how, after you spend all that time being pregnant and then giving birth, the child doesn't even give you a smile for several months? You know how great it feels when they finally do?

Every time I read a comment from a reader, it makes my day. It makes me feel like I'm not alone, that you're not alone, that someone is reading my writing, that someone else might be thinking about some of the things contained herein. I mean, I know tons of people are wrestling with the very same questions. We just tend not to talk about it at cocktail parties. (That is, if we even get to go to cocktail parties anymore.)

So go ahead. Make my day.

That's the Real Yoga

In yoga class yesterday morning, Denise had us trying this crazy pose that almost no one could do. People were alternately laughing and complaining about it. There was a general buzz of, "Oh, yeah, right" in the room, and lots of people falling over and blowing raspberries at themselves.

Denise stopped the class.

"The reason we try these poses that seem outrageous is not just to be able to do the pose. If you can put your foot behind your head, is that really going to help you out there?" She gestured toward the windows, on the other side of which idled a noisy cement-mixing truck. "Not really," she answered for us. "But if you set your sights on the impossible, and you create the intention to go in that direction, that will help you out there. Because you're doing what hasn't been done before. That's how change happens. Now," she said. "Let's try it again on the other side."

Chastened, we all got into position. I squatted into a very low, leaning lunge. Slowly, I hooked my left shoulder under my left knee. My face came close to my left foot. (Chipping nail polish, hmm, need to take care of that.) I leaned back, tried to lift that foot off the floor and...I fell onto my butt. I got back into the pose and commanded my foot to lift. There was a slight contraction of a muscle deep in my inner thigh. Hello, little muscle, have we met? I contracted it more. My foot raised up a hair off the mat. And then I fell over again.

After class, I chatted with a woman from class as we waited for a light to change. I'll call her Diane, because I believe that's her name. She's a short, solid, middle-aged woman with steel-gray hair. She wore a button on her black sweatshirt that said, "ANOTHER QUAKER FOR PEACE."

"That was great," she said of the wacky pose. "They should put this idea in places like Yoga Journal. Doing the full pose isn't the point. When you're working hard in that direction, that's the real yoga! They need to come take pictures of our class and put that on the cover. Instead of these skinny-ninnies who can do everything."

And that, in a nutshell, is what Denise teaches us. Whatever we do, the spirit and heart of our energy is what truly matters. Setting our minds in the right place is what gets us there. It's easy to forget this sometimes watching her. She's fifty-four with a totally gorgeous bombshell body. But she does set us on the right path. Especially when it comes to our expectations about what yoga can do for us.

"I get annoyed at some claims people make for yoga," she said once. "Practicing yoga doesn't mean you never get sick or bad things never happen to you again. It gives you the skills to deal with that stuff."

So I learn, again and again, that the practice of health and balance is neverending. I will never get to the perfect life balance and then rest there. It takes intention and practice and re-evaluation.

Like now, I have regained a certain level of mental health, which has led me to be stronger and more capable, which has led me to pile more things on my calendar and desk. So I'm sort of shaking the water off my face and asking if this was the actual point of getting well. If I am to stay well, the answer is no.

So I guess I just keep moving toward what really matters and let everything else fall away. How else can I do the important work of my life?

Readers, what do you let go of when something has to give?

Playgrounds

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the most depressing places on the earth: playgrounds.

I'm fine when I show up, but after ten minutes I'm in serious need of a cocktail. There is nothing with quite the stench of boredom (to borrow a phrase from my friend Jane) as a playground during the post-nap, pre-dinner time of day. Especially on a weekend. Weekdays are filled with chatty stay-at-homes, be they moms, dads, or nannies. But the weekends tend to be deadly. Especially due to the dads and their cell phones.

I can't count the number of dads I see at playgrounds yakking on their cell phones. I am sorry if I am on a man-bashing trend right now, but DAMN. Today I watched a dad talk on his phone while his three kids ran all over the playground. He talked on his phone while he led them to the SUV. And then, he talked on his phone while he loaded them into the car and safety seats with one arm. When he backed out of his parking spot, he was still talking on the phone. I see dads talking on the phone while pushing babies in bucket swings.

Is this a coping skill that I just haven't learned? Believe me, I understand the desire to run screaming from a boring hour at a playground, but I do at least mime involvement. My kids don't want to just play in the sand. They want me to play in the sand with them. Talk to them. Make eye contact. I can do this while thinking about what to write for my next blog and they probably don't have a clue.

Maybe I'm in a huff about the cell phone dads because I absolutely hate going to playgrounds in general and I think everybody else should be as miserable as I am. Truly, after being stabbed with the desire for a drink or a smoke or ANYTHING to alter my consciousness, I am beset with soul-sucking dread and dullness.

It reminds me of being nine years old on blacktop kickball court in 95 degree heat. When I was a kid, I didn't really know how to do physical play. If it didn't involve roller skating, lip-synching, or redecorating my bedroom, I'd rather be reading. So being forced to play games with balls at school was a special form of torture. On the playground at recess, I jumped rope or did cherry-drops on the bars. And then when I found my soul-mate best friend in fourth grade, we spent our recesses together cruising the blacktop and talking. That was heaven.

So maybe my current playground aversion has to do with my past, or maybe I just resent spending time doing boring shit with my kids, or maybe playgrounds are boring for everyone and no one admits it.

Anyone care to comment?