The Magic of My Dining Room Table

Last week, I had the pleasure of hosting a workshop called "From Blog to Book," featuring my writing coach, Erin Reel (aka "The Lit Coach").  I don't know that I had any idea what to expect, but I definitely wanted to share Erin's point of view and inspiration with my writer friends.  In fact, I made a point of inviting friends who were either not bloggers or didn't consider themselves writers... because I felt as though the workshop might offer them the little push they needed to jump-start their creative juices.


And boy was I right.  Not only did we learn a lot from Erin (who did a little creative "off-roading" in the interest of serving our very chatty, funny, and engaging group) but we learned a heck of a lot from each other.  A few of the attendees had met before, but many hadn't.  It gave me the opportunity to be a "connector," one my best talents, and put like-minded souls next to one another to collaborate and innovate.  


I sat back and enjoyed the magic of this group sitting around my dining room table.  Women sharing stories, sharing ideas, recognizing their own talents and seeing the value in their individual perspectives.  It was dazzling to participate in such a stew of creative process and appreciation.  From that table, inspiration grew like Jack's magic beans, circling the room and bursting through the roof.  In the week since, I've had the pleasure of reading many new blog posts from the women around that table.


And yeah, I've been a little smug, a little "I told ya so." 


Check out the blogs:

• Erin Reel - The Lit Coach's Guide to the Writing Life - essential info for writers of all genres
• Deirdre Lewis - A Walking Carnival - personal, thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud essays
• Kim Tracy Prince - House of Prince - observations on the world and parenting, plus so much more
• Kendra Pahukoa - Craig Olsen - home design tips and inspiration from one of LA's most glamorous designer showrooms
• Christine Rose Elle - Dollybelle's Peepshow - a delicious cupcake of fashion, frills and inspiration
• Mia Villarins - And I s'Wear - frugal fashion finds (and how to put it all together) by a fun mama

Baby, You're a Firework

The other day, our family was at the beach and I commented to Emme that I wanted to get a tan on my stomach (which hasn't seen the light of day since I birthed three kids... and multiple stretch marks).  


I said, "Maybe I should get a bikini..." and then I spied a woman in a black bikini who was larger than me and not your typical Baywatch babe in a bikini.  "Or not."


Emme didn't even blink.  "She looks like she's happy," she said.  Then she shrugged and we talked about something else.


And that's the lesson, isn't it?  It won't matter what you wear, as long as you're happy.  That's what counts.

...And the Livin's Easy...

One of my husband's legacies for our kids is his love of the band Sublime, the 90s reggae/ska/punk/rock band from Long Beach.  My girls know most of the words to most of their songs and last summer, as a family, we deciphered a lyric from "Garden Grove" that had eluded us ("I got the deuce-deuce in the trunk of my car"... which I had been singing as "Blue's Clues" and Marlowe thought was "doo-doo"... both of which are G-rated compared to Bradley Nowell's .22).  There is a sound in their music that is so uniquely Southern Californian, simultaneously laid-back and in-your-face, like a tatted-up Chicano offering you a coolie from the chest while telling you about his uncle who's doing time.  You're a little scared, but you feel lulled into staying a while.  


Although each of their songs sounds like summer to me, the big daddy of them all is "Doin' Time," which riffs off the old Gershwin son "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess." When I hear the first strains of it, I can see ice cream trucks rolling through hazy San Gabriel Valley neighborhoods, kids running barefoot through crabgrass, heat rising like a mirage from the asphalt streets. 


Summertime... and the livin's easy...


I've thought of this song over and over since my kids got out of school on the 16th.  As they've shed their school schedules and the weather has warmed up, a lovely hum has taken over our lives.  The clock has slowed down and the mileage on my car has only increased by 8 miles over the past four days.  The lingering hours of daylight have given way to spontaneous pool parties and endless trays of cut-up fruit or popsicles in lieu of real meals. Their friend from down the street has become a 4th sister, and the pack of girls zigzags up and down the hill, from her plum-treed lawn to our pool and back again.  My writing time, which I had thought I'd have to give up by virtue of my kids' very presence in the house, has actually increased.  While they're in the pool, I sit at my table by the window and type, half-listening to their mermaid games and splashes, soaking up the summer sun by osmosis.  Today was their first lemonade stand and I'm sure it will become a neighborhood staple, with its icy sweet ade and dog biscuits. 


Last night, as Raf and I sat in the dusky evening light, I said, "It's been such a good summer."


"It's only been a week," he said, cautioning me that the kids could get bored any minute and the lull of having no real plans could become a living hell with three stir-crazy kids.


And I know that, but let's just take it slow for now.  We've got time.

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Last week, when I went to Sherman Oaks to get my hair done, I remembered why I drive so far every few weeks to get my hair (ahem) "back to natural."  My hairstylist, a very pleasant older woman, reminds me very much of Rafael's aunt: caring, nurturing, feeding.  She is impeccably on time and there is never any drama.  When I arrive, she is ready for me and we share a few pleasantries, then it is quiet enough for me to read my book or magazine, and my hair is perfectly colored, trimmed and blown out in an hour.  Plus, she's next door to Starbucks.  All told, it's a delightful experience each and every time.


And so last week, as I waited for my roots to return to a color better than gray, Parvan quietly handed me a cup full of mulberries.  "Just like last year," she said.  "They're back in season."


I took the first bite and I remembered them, all too well.  Last year, I had called her in a panic to please do my hair before Max's funeral.  I didn't know her, but she was conveniently located and highly recommended by a friend.  Grieving, I just went with it, called her, set up an appointment.


While my hair processed, I answered sympathy texts and listened to sad voicemails, but I could hardly talk.  Mostly, I just cried.  Quietly, Parvan came over, humbly offering me a plate of juicy red and purple mulberries from a tree in her yard. I remember that I had to wear sunglasses because my face was so flushed and tear-stained.  "I've never had them," I said, sniffling.  "Are they good?"


She shrugged sweetly.  "Try them," she said, nudging the plate at me.  


Mulberries have small berries along a 3- or 4-inch stem, and they are sweet without being too tart.  Almost like a cross between a sweet red grape and a blueberry, but not as juicy.  I devoured them, even as tears pooled over the plate. I'd sob, and eat another, then sob some more, then eat another.  Even I knew there was nothing more to do.  Just go with it.  Be with this moment.  It will pass.


And somehow a year has passed.  I only know because Parvan's mulberries are back in season and now Max's grave has a headstone.  I find it interesting that my grief has a taste, but it does.

Passages

It's always interesting to me that I think about upcoming life passages so far in advance that I can forget about them and they will still surprise me when they happen.  For instance, when all of the kids were babies, I had thought, "When Marlowe's about 5, Serena will be 8 and Emme will be 9, so that would be a good time to go to Europe."  And now it's been nearly a year since we went... POOF!  Like a dream, the year has passed.

Similarly, when Marlowe was born, I had dreamed of the days when she would be in school with her sisters.  As a mom of three, I was excited that there would be 2 solid years when all three kids were at the same school.  Somehow, life kept me distracted and I was brushing my teeth the other night and realized that those 2 years are now coming to a close. In just over 2 weeks, Emme will be done with elementary school and she and Marlowe will never be at the same school again.  Sure, Mar will have Nina nearby, but it's not the same as Marlowe having her oldest sister with her.  For a 1st grader, it's been a big deal for her friends to see her hugging and hanging out with 5th grade girls.  For Emme, it's a chance to have someone look up to her in a real way; Serena is so close in age to Emme that she scoffs at Emme's authority, but Marlowe doesn't.  I had been so focused on Emme's passage into a new chapter that I nearly missed out on Marlowe's.  And my own, as a mom with "older" kids (meaning: not babies).

Life happens when you least expect it, doesn't it?  I suppose it's one of the things I like most about it.  The surprise, even after all these years.

Growing Up

Two very significant things that I have been waiting for – for a long time, each of them – happened this week, within days of each other.  The first is, my birth father found me.  The more important one is, my cat died.

I hadn’t seen or heard from my birth father since I was a baby.  So for all intents and purposes, I really never knew him.  He and my mom were married when she was 20, then she had my brother – BOOM! – and then me a year later – BOOM! BOOM! And by age 23, they were no longer together.  A lot of shit happened in-between and I have surreal memories of him being abusive to my mom.  My mother, who was very young and beautiful even with two very small babies, got remarried when she was 25 and my brother and I were raised by a loving father who gave us everything we ever needed or wanted.  He and my mom are still very happily married. 

It has taken me nearly 40 years (and a lot of therapy and yoga and deep breathing) to excuse my birth father for his absence, although I feel as though I can attribute a great deal of my inner self-loathing and former perfectionist tendencies to his abandonment.  When my dad read me the letter that my birth father had sent to my mom via Facebook, I felt ready to hear it.  I was not destroyed or confused or… anything.  I was very surprised by my reaction, which was kind of a shoulder shrug and head leaning, my eyebrows pinched together as my brain processed it.  Huh.  That’s all I felt at first.  Huh.  It was precisely the same reaction I’d have if someone told me that they’d run into my old boyfriend.  Is that so?  Huh.  Another shoulder shrug, then onto the next thing.

I won’t lie: I also went through a very quick series of feelings that ranged from anger to disbelief to disappointment.  But I didn’t feel like my core was shaken.  If anything, I felt like I was more “me” than I ever had been.  All this time, I’d thought knowing that my birth father was out there or looking for me would do something… I don’t know if I expected unicorns to blow rainbows or bubbles out of their horns or lollipops to rain from the sky, but all I know is that it didn’t.  Instead, I felt like this person I’d become in 39 short years was just a small part nature (the DNA that he and my mom had contributed), a bigger part nurture (the family and environment that I’d grown up in) and the majority was self-evolved and created through hard work and dedication to learning about my own human spirit through the very act of living.  And so this letter, which upset my mother because she thought it would mean he was going to “take us away” (never gonna happen), really had very little impact. 

And so the day ended.  

The next day, however, it became clear that my cat Bootsie may not live through the weekend.  There are medical details and there were sad choices to make – I won’t elaborate on them here because it’s still too fresh and I’m too sad to make sense of it – but I decided it would be best to let my beloved cat go.  She was nearly 19 for god’s sake, much older than many animals ever get to live (too bad I didn’t fall in love with a Galapagos turtle, I suppose).  It was time. 

I sat in the vet’s office this morning before 8 am, knowing that I had to be the one to choose her fate: live uncomfortably or die compassionately.  Be a grown-up, I told myself.  This is what your life is about.  You cannot let this moment be chosen by someone else besides you and Bootsie.  And so I said goodbye to her, hoping she could understand me as I said, Come back to me.  Hoping, of course, that my fairytale of reincarnation is true.

After they took her back to put her to sleep – I couldn't make myself go with her, it was hard enough to know I’d been the one to end her life – it was only about two minutes before they brought her back to me in a box (so that I could take her home to bury her in my yard). They said she hadn't struggled a bit.  They said she seemed like she knew it was time.  

As I took the box, which was still warm on the bottom from the life slowly escaping her body, and slowly walked to my car, I was flooded with memories. I used to, for instance, serve her water in a crystal goblet.  She ate dinner on the table next to me. She came to me the weekend I moved into my first apartment in Hollywood and survived my crazy single girl years, then my marriage, then my kids, then our move (in which she traveled with us from temporary house to temporary house magnificently, even as we grieved over Max, until we arrived home).  She is a part of me and I am (I’m sure of it) a part of her.  She tolerated Raf and the kids and the dog, but she loved me.  Only me.

The point of this missive is merely that we choose the ones that we love.  We don’t have to be obligated to give emotion or power to the people or things that have not nurtured or loved us back.  This week, I learned to call a duck a duck – my birth father will never be my dad, although I am grateful for the part his DNA played in my creation – and I allowed myself the space to impart the ultimate act of kindness and love for my beloved cat. I don’t know if either one is the “right” choice, but they are my choices and I feel like I must be growing up because I feel like I can stand tall next to them.

Amen!

I just happened upon this gem from Ira Glass of This American Life.  I soooo needed it....

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.


— Ira Glass