Thank you for dancing with us. I won't say anything else about that last post except thank you and you are all adored and I'm grateful.
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Change is not my thing. I resist it on principle. But, even I have my price and I have sold myself out for a master bathroom. Oh, to have the pukey flu and not have to puke into the same toilet my children puked into all night. To avoid the pee smell - why does it always smell like pee?? - around the upstairs toilet. To shower in a shower that has not bathed my beautiful, small son and his various fungi.
I will sacrifice much. I will bend. I will accept change.
Three days ago, our backyard looked like this.
This happened.
And now it looks like this.
They'll be going in the back of the house in about three weeks. The Snow White room will become a master suite. The kids will move into the room that Matt and I have shared for seven years.
The office, on the first floor, will become a homework/work space for our elementary school kids. That is, if I can ever get it not to look like this.
Daunting. We have a lot of throwing away and getting rid of and reorganizing to do. I am up to this task because as much as I hate change; I hate CLUTTER even more! Besides, I've been dreaming about four gorgeous little Pottery Barn desks that I can not afford for weeks now.
On a whim, the kids and I drove across the river the other day after school to do a small errand. Look at what was sitting outside of an antique shop along the way.
It was like a sign from the gods of change and child-sized desks. Who had, incidentally, also ordered me to stop and get a Starbucks chai in order to fortify myself for the days ahead. I actually bought it right then. The desk, I mean. Unheard of - I am the most indecisive shopper you will ever have the misfortune to encounter. Now, if I could just stumble across three more pretty, little desks for under $100.00, we will know that the construction spirits favor this project.
When the gods of change and desks speak, you have to listen. Especially when Scott, the long-suffering contractor, is about to put an addition-sized hole in the back of your house. Besides, if you fail to step up and meet change on your own terms, it will find you, hiding in the back of the closet rocking back and forth and it will take your precious babies away and make them big kids who need desks to do homework. (I'll be in the closet, rocking back and forth.)
I started this blog because I love to write. I've kept it up for almost four years because of the people that I connect with here. I never imagined that I could write about a passing thought or a fleeting emotion and have other people, women, mothers, fathers, children who are grown, respond to me and share their thoughts.
It's magic.
When I wrote about the goings on inside of my head at the Mother's Day tea, I knew that some would relate and some would think it was silly, but I am always shocked by how much I learn. Our different perspectives are delightful; they both affirm for me that we all live inside our heads a bit and challenge me to have a broader perspective. I love Anna See's comment about seeing things "through the window of our insecurities" and I love that all of the comments highlighted that while our worries might be different, our desires for our children are often the same. I love that because of Varda the next time one of my kids calls me Stacey, I'll smile and say, "you know, anyone can call me Stacey, but only four special people in the whole world get to call me mommy."
I worry, especially when you are easy with your praise on how I handled a situation, that I am not clear enough that of course I write about moments that made me pause, that I took seriously and thoughtfully. Nine out of ten times, I am neither serious nor thoughtful. I am in a hurry and I stampede over small moments yelling something obnoxious like "GREAT, GET YOUR BUCKLES ON RIGHT NOW AND PLEASE DO NOT PICK YOUR NOSE, IT'S GROSS!" You know that right?
(Also, for the record, while we are talking about the Mother's Day post. I do have more than one pair of shoes. Admittedly, most of them never leave my closet, except for the flip flops. And the snow boots.)
What I love the most is that we have built between us, here and on your blogs and through email and even in person, something that I treasure - broad, open discussion about parenthood and life without personal attacks.
And some people don't get it. I know, the conventional wisdom is to ignore. Give no attention, no fodder, don't let them smell your fear. Let the bile fade away. But, shit. Sometimes, I'm not afraid. Sometimes, I just have something to say about it, you know? Even though the lovely outweighs the vile by 100,000 tons or more.
Here are some excerpts from a recent comment by Brenda.
"I stopped reading your blog because I got tired of the whining about your relationship with your daughter. I accidentally clicked on (need to delete you from my bookmark)." (sic)
You say "whining" I say, "deeply discussing." Difference of opinion, I suppose. I write here about things that cross my mind because I enjoy talking about these issues with other adults, understanding how they process the same emotions and connecting with people who have felt, even for a second, like I do. I can see how micro-analyzing thoughts and emotions and experiences could be boring or seem whiny to some, so there you go. You have to right click on the bookmark to delete it, Brenda, it's not that hard. Did you accidentally click on comment too? Did you accidentally start typing? I accidentally hit my horn and called someone an asshole yesterday. I still feel kind of bad about it.
Brenda goes on: "One question...why do you always dress your daughter as a clown? You and your sons are always dressed in such conservative, muted colors, yet you put her in overly bright and patterned outfits. And way too many plaits on her head with all that awful plastic crap thrown in for good measure."
Let's get this out of the way. Yes, Brenda, this hurt my feelings. Fleetingly, perhaps, but it did. So, if that was your goal, brava, my dear, you win. Since you "asked," she likes color and so do I. She is certainly not out of the ordinary, color palette wise, with other girls her age, except perhaps for my complete refusal to recognize pink, sparkly tutus as acceptable Kindergarten attire. Only because they rip, mind you, and I'm tired of buying them. As for her hair, well, two lovely little girls in her class - undoubtedly raised by women with ideas similar to yours on criticizing others - mocked her whenever we left it natural or even partially unbraided because it is "poofy." Due in large part to that experience, she prefers braids and beads and she wears them very much in line with other African American children with her hair type.
The thing that's funny is that I don't mind heated discussion. I don't mind disagreement. I don't even mind criticism, though I prefer that it's constructive. But cruelty doesn't inspire anyone to listen or to change. Cruelty is just ... cruel.
Sigh. Oh Brenda, you don't even get why your words don't matter, do you?
The other day the kids and I were discussing what Saige might say to the two little girls who are negative about her hair and also what Garrett might say to another child who calls him a nickname he dislikes. We talked - amazingly - about the difference between defending yourself or stating your position and cutting someone else down. My five-year-olds understood the distinction. They understood that saying, "I think my hair is beautiful and I don't like it when you call it puffy and I'm not going to sit by you when you do that" is different - entirely different - from saying, "Oh yeah, well your stringy, blond hair is ugly too."
And that's what matters to me.
What matters to me is that I talk to my children almost every day about kindness. What matters to me is that I am doing my very best to bring up people who would never send such a message to another human being because there are a million ways to express disagreement without being cruel.
I am raising children who won't need to put others down to feel heard, or to have their existence justified or to feel good about themselves. I truly believe, though they will misstep, as do I, that my children are going to be empathetic, thoughtful and kind. Kind young people and kind adults. And I truly believe that it's important.
I told them that someone had been mean to me and hurt my feelings too and that I thought, after we practiced what we might say to people who hurt our feelings or who are unkind on purpose, we should all sing a silly song because everyone feels better when silly songs are involved. And we did.
Brenda, I don't like it when you criticize the way my children look and I won't allow it in my comments. But, I'm sure you're beautiful, in your own way and that you make very appropriate clothes choices at all times. However, if you keep this up, I do have to point out that there's a strong possibility that all you're ever gonna be is mean.
We've owned ye olde house for seven years. That is the longest I have ever lived in one place (not counting our two trips to Saipan). Despite Matt's grumbling and groaning, I haven't missed a year at the flowering wall since the kids were born.
I love the flower wall pictures this year - and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented with suggestions last year. I was much more thoughtful about light issues this time around. We might try one more time in the early morning. If I can ever get my act together! For the moment, I'm going to sit here and cry for a bit about how they grow.
Quinn, May 2011 (3 years old).
Quinn (3) and Nate (1), May 2011.
Quinn (10 months), May 2008.
Nate, the nature hater, (11 months) May 2010.
And this beautiful girl, so grown up all of a sudden. Saige (5), May 2011.
Remember? Saige (2) 2008.
And May 2010 (4).
Garrett (5), May 2011.
Garrett (4), May 2010.
Oh, my heart. May 2008 (2, 2, 10 mos).
May 2009. (3, 3, 1) (but almost 4, almost 4, almost 2!)
May 2010 (4, 4, 2, 11 months)
May 2011. (5, 5, 3, 1) (I'm slipping. Quinn is filthy from helping his Dad all day and Nate needs a hair cut desperately, but hey, we got there, and they almost all smiled.)
Swiftly, swiftly flow the years. I want to sit in an eddy for a few minutes and gaze at them, but every good rapid shooter knows that the raft flips if you quit paddling.
Last Sunday, Mother's Day, LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER day was also our twelfth wedding anniversary. Lost in the chaos, set aside, but deliberately. With care. This post was inspired by (though it falls short of) two of my favorite writers, Maggie May and her Blue Collar Love Letter (oh, to write characterizations like Maggie) and BHJ's Poor Beauty (just, oh).
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I can see him from the big window on the landing of our stairs. Framed in the large square of light formed by the open garage door, he sits in a cheap green plastic chair. He is intent on the metal bones of some car part fossil spread out on the makeshift work table before him.
It's late and I'm tired. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a niggle of irritation worms its way between thoughts. We've barely seen each other today and he's out in the garage, tinkering with that truck. Upstairs, I set down the towering basket of clean laundry in my arms and push open the door to the Snow White room. They are all asleep, sprawled in perfect relaxation on their miniature beds. The baby sleeps too, cuddled tight against his polka dot crib bumper.
Don't you ever feel trapped, she asks, like you're just so stuck in this and there's no where to go?
I get it, I tell her. I do. I empathize with the feeling of being dissatisfied, not where I want to be, but no, I don't feel that way. I feel frustrated at times. I feel tired. I feel martyred by laundry. I am petty. I complain. It is a part of the human condition, isn't it, to become mired in one's own limited situation, even when you know the big picture is bright and pretty and good.
But, I don't feel trapped. I feel lucky. I feel lucky to wake up each morning and dress my four children for school. I feel lucky to spend my days with them and with friends that I never could have made, or spent so much time getting to know, in any other circumstance of life. I feel lucky to sit at my basically clean dining room table and type about life in the beauty of my nap-time-quiet house with the sun and the horse dog and the new leaves budding outside the windows behind me.
I know couples fall out of love in this season of their lives. It's hard to find the thread of self in the press of the days and hold it, let alone the thread of each other. We do, though.
I don't know where he finds it; he doesn't write his thoughts down for me to see, but I know where I find it.
I find it in the way that he holds a newborn baby, casual and confident, like he's standing on a ladder holding a roofing tile. I find it in his 1950s-house-wife coupon holder, each little pouch in the small accordion divider a nest for a different category of carefully clipped savings. I find it in the way he spins the kids until they shriek with laughter and in the way he talks to Garrett when those awful boys chase him under the slide. It is in his neatly hand-printed budget sheets. A new one each month, the columns set out reverently, a little bit like prayers. Prayers for the future. Family. House. Gas. Clothes. Stacey. Matt. And in the way he divides his overtime checks into thirds, 1/3 for family, 1/3 for Matt, 1/3 for Stacey. Hours he's worked beyond the grueling seven tens in a row, divided among a family of six with no complaints. I find it in the handmade wooden dory drying upside down on props in our garage and in his painstaking care of our ninety-year-old house that moans about its age in protest under the strain of our young family. It's in the way he pops the stuck nursery door open with a screwdriver. It's in the way he looks at me at three o'clock in the afternoon when I say I'm taking a shower.
Seen. I am seen. These are my poems to collarbones. I find them every day in our lives, hidden in the dirty diapers and endless loads of laundry. Tucked under dirty pillow cases. Stashed behind dog-hair covered sofa pillows. Folded into casseroles that kids refuse to eat. Priceless pieces of Limoges, fragile and egg-shell-thin, somehow in tact at the bottom of a huge cardboard box thrown on the lawn at a corner garage sale.
The strongest impressions are surges of feeling. I remember a moment in college, so early on a summer morning that the light was still gray. I remember the surprise of opening the door of our dilapidated student-ghetto house to Matt, tired and young and eager. He had driven all night to get home to Ohio from North Carolina a day early. Ditched the last party with his friends because he wanted to see me, not desperately or needfully, just honestly. I remember feeling so warm with happiness and love and promise.
I still feel that way inside. Though, I am not a girl and he is not a boy and from the outside I'm sure we look the very definition of settled, trapped complacency. Hidden inside this pony-tailed, unfashionable, can't be bothered with make up, dented minivan driving, easily irritated, impatient mom of four in worn out running shoes is that slim, summer-sun-stained, sleepy girl in his old, torn OSU t-shirt, her beautiful, twenty-year-old legs bare, her olive-tinged, just-awakened face childishly smooth, uncreased by care, her eyes lit up with surprise and love.
He knows where to find her, eighteen years of life and twelve years of marriage later. And that is the secret, hidden treasure of our togetherness.
People often ask me about adoption. Would I do it again? Absolutely. What's the hardest thing? I always have trouble putting my finger on it.
I think, boiled down to its simplest form, the answer is nothing. Everything. Parenting is hard. I worry about things that other parents do not. But, then again, parents of shy children worry about things that I don't worry about. Parents of autistic children have worries that have never crossed my mind. Parents of children with severe allergies, parents of premature children. My closest friends worry about issues that don't make my top ten list and vice versa. In the end, every single child and parent relationship comes with its own set of worries, doesn't it? Struggles that depend on the child and the parent and the timing and the universe at large.
If I wanted to try and put my finger on the sore spots that are unique to my relationship with Saige, as influenced by the fact that we became mother and daughter through adoption, I would tell a story about Kindergarten Mother's Day tea.
My beautiful big kids. They sang "Skidamarinkadink," which never fails to make me cry. There were books that they wrote to me and boxes that they painted for me. At each child's place, a laminated placement lay decorated with a poem that they had written about their mother.
I had to fight not to cry. And no, I don't think that she used my proper name because she doesn't think of me as her mother. She screams mommy and runs to me when I walked into a room. She hugs me tight and tells me she loves me every night. We are bonded; I feel secure in that. I don't think it has anything to do with adoption. My head knows that she is a smart little girl who notices everything, including what my friends and their children call me and what I call them. She knows that calling me Stacey is a special privilege - a social parameter that she understands, in her way, so much more quickly than her brother.
But it still hurt my heart. It still made me uncomfortable. I sat there feeling raw and shocked and vulnerable.
I wouldn't have thought a thing of it if Garrett had used my proper name. My insecurities with him are not so close to the surface.
And I hope, in the last five years and in the next fifteen years and forever after until death do Saige and I part, that I will not lay my insecurities at my daughter's feet. Not at all. That she will know only that I love her, regardless of what she calls me. (Restrictive, life-ruining BITCH, even, though it will be hard to remember it at the time.).
It's really, really hard sometimes. I would type "to be an adoptive parent." But I think the truth is "to be a parent." It's like anything that you open yourself up to all the way. The stakes are so very high when you give 110% effort because there is no safe haven, no "I didn't try" to hide behind.When you love fully, without reservation, without condition, you are vulnerable to hurt and it doesn't matter if it's a friend or a partner, a sister or a spouse, or a child. It's okay. There's no point in standing outside the fire. How is life measured if not by the amount of time you spent in the flames?
I don't think it's wrong to admit that our kids can hurt our feelings. It's how we handle it that matters. I smiled and told her that it was such a beautiful poem and I loved the way she used my name to make it special because I love my name. It starts with the same letter as hers.
And then, later, I turn to my husband and my friends and my writing and I say, that hurt a little, but only because I love her all the way.
People keep asking me if I'm happy with the way things went on Sunday and I say things like "perfect" and "flawless" and "awed." But it feels wrong because it feels as though I'm saying that the show was "flawless," which would reflect on our preparation or organization or something and that's not what I mean. I mean that the experience was perfect. I mean that it was everything I hoped the day would be - and more. Not just for me, but for every woman on that stage and every person sitting in the audience.
It was warm and raw and funny and heartbreaking and so real it hurt. It was perfectly flawed. The way each of us is perfect and flawed. The way motherhood is perfect and flawed. The way life is perfect and flawed.
Throughout the two hour prep for the show and the technical run-through, there was a problem with the stage spotlights. They were on some kind of timer and they kept going out suddenly. The light technician worked feverishly to fix it, but in the end, though we had a back-up spotlight, we were unsure if the lights would go out suddenly during the show.
I kept a smile on my face, but I thought I might strangle several kittens with a light cord if the spotlights went off unexpectedly one more time during our technical rehearsal. And then, as I stood in the wings, feeling slightly ill with nerves, waiting to go out and introduce the show, I let it go; I just knew it was going to be all right and it was. Those damn lights stayed on for the entire performance. I shall refrain from making any "lights in the temple/miracle of the oil" references here, because, ahem...really, Stacey? Except that I just did because it was that miraculous in my mind. Kittens survived is what I'm telling you.
I didn't have the right words for the day until this morning, when a dear friend who came to hear the readings said that it was the feeling of connection in the room that made the event so special. That she felt connected in an intimate way to the women reading and to the women around her listening. I thought, finally, yep, that's it. We did it.
Curtain call. (We did have real lights and I swear we weren't in a gym. We brought the stage lights up so that we could see the audience.) Photo credit: Follger Photography.
I am overwhelmed with admiration for the eleven women on that stage with me. Their stories. Their spirits. Their joy. Their pain. Their motherhood.
There were so many compliments from so many people - I just can not say thank you enough - but the thing that I loved was that each compliment, each comment about how someone identified so strongly with a certain moment, was about a different piece, a different story.
Above: Elise and Jeremy (her unbelievably patient and sweet husband) in deep discussion over the will call list. Below: Me. Holding my imaginary chai tea latte during my reading. I thought you all might appreciate that. Photography by Nick and Michele Follger.
I learned that I have not even the slightest clue what cute, funky shoes entail.
THESE are cute, funky shoes, my friends, and they are so not mine. (They are Elise's shoes.)
There is a Listen To Your Mother flickr group where I plan to post the rest of the pictures, eventually. If I can ever get my normal life back under control. I also plan to spend the rest of the evening posting gorgeous pictures of each of our speakers on the Spokane LTYM blog.
Sunday forever confirmed for me the power of storytelling. To forge connections. To transform relationships. To broaden perspectives and to change minds. To encourage compassion and empathy. To bring out the best in all of us.
I can not wait for next year.
(Comments are closed. Thank you for indulging me in these posts. I am now returning to my regularly scheduled life.)
My to do lists is out of control, but it's fun. It really is.
Less than forty-eight hours until I step up to the microphone to introduce the first reader in the LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER Spokane show. We had an amazing full-run-through rehearsal on Tuesday night in a chapel with a huge cross over our heads. Which made it interesting when we were laughing until we cried over someone's bloodied nursing nipples. Aside from the fact that we tried to dehydrate our entire cast permanently - it was so freaking hot in there - it was perfection.
Matt's mom flew in on Tuesday morning and my mom arrived late Wednesday night. The kids are vibrating with excitement. They haven't stopped talking for three days, except for Garrett, who stopped talking briefly twice this morning to vomit everywhere. So, I'll be spending the next forty-eight hours cringing at every stomach twinge and surge of nervous butterflies, expecting to be laid low by child-stomach-crud-from-hell just in time to have to crawl, green-faced and miserable through this AWESOME show that we have worked so hard on for months. Damn children to hell in a hand-basket with the lid firmly latched and all their stupid puking germs inside it with them. Yet more sickies aside, running millions of errands is laughably easy with grandmas in the car. I can just leave the difficult, slow, snotty, shoes-always-untied children in the car and run in. Unheard of. Heaven.
In the midst of the chaos and fun and crazy, unbelievable sadness. We lost a dear friend suddenly on Sunday. Matt flies to Denver for the day on Saturday to attend the service celebrating his incredible life. You probably noticed a slight something on Sunday night and turned on a light or just looked up for a moment, wondering, because the world became a little bit darker the moment his light slipped out of it. If all goes according to plan and airplanes fly when they say they will, Matt will be back on Sunday morning, just in time to have all of the children thrown at him so that my mom and my mother-in-law can come to the show.
Sometime last week, before the advent of the to do list from hell, I took the kids to the circus by myself and attended Kindergarten Mother's Day tea. I have posts written on both experiences, but they will just have to wait for my return to post-production stress levels.
The programs are proofed and printed. (And every single person in my life has been duly warned to take typos or errors to their grave, I do not want to know. Ever.) Flowers bought. Notebook with all pieces and transitions ready for the podium. Will call list printed. We're ready. These women are amazing and we are so ready.
I went shopping. I know. I bought an outfit and cute funky shoes. In case you don't remember, I am not a shopper. I haven't bought cute, funky shoes since, maybe 2001. And then I bought lipstick at a real, honest-to-god make up counter in Nordstroms, which almost didn't happen because OH! THE HORROR! My face in those torture devices the make-up mavens call "mirrors!" WTF? What is up with that? How do you make-up buying women deal with seeing your face in that awful mirror on a regular basis? Why would I ever need to see my face so ... horrifically magnified? Or the craters around my mouth and in the corners of my eyes? Or the pores on my cheeks. Or the hairs? My god, the hairs. Shudder. I am still recovering and I have no idea if I actually like the lipstick that the kind make-up lady picked out for me because I could not get that evil mirror away from my face fast enough.
When you watch the video (you will watch the video, won't you?) of the Spokane show, you will have to look for my fancy outfit and funky shoes and out-of-my-comfort-zone lipstick and then you will tell me that you loved it and take all criticism to your grave because wouldn't you feel guilty if I curled up into a little ball and died?
I'm kidding. Of course. You will watch the video to hear the gorgeous words - and you won't even notice me because you will be riveted by the women in our cast and their stories. And that is typed with absolutely no kidding or sarcasm or dissembling of any kind. They. are. astonishing.
Happy, happy Mother's Day, my lovelies. Send up a little thought for us and our excitement and our nerves and our hearts and souls and our funky shoes and our (hopefully, please, universe, please) happy stomachs on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. PST.
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