“I really like rowdy kids” - Violet, age 3
Over Babble Yonder:
Archive Page 2
28
Jul
Small Not Simple
18
Jul
Sober BlogHer
I’m in beautiful fresh-air San Francisco this week with a gajillion other women for BlogHer. I was somewhat nervous about coming to such a potentially alcohol-centric event again, but it has been completely lovely.
I’ve caught up with some of my lovely on-line writer pals and will meet some more of them this evening.
Kid-free vacations are so relaxing.. which is perhaps obvious to most thinking people but hasn’t always been so obvious to me.
I just returned from the Frida Kahlo Exhibit at the SF Museum of Modern Art and was blown away by the beautiful lengths many of us go to kill ourselves off for love. Here is a woman who suffered, transformed physically and emotionally and transformed her suffering into art. But her sorrow in many of the paintings is palpable. It jumped out and grabbed me by the throat until I had to swallow and breathe.
08
Jul
On Turning 40…
I turn 40 this week. It is something I’ve dreaded for over a year now. 40 seems so auspicious, so significant. At 30, I was newly divorced and childless, sad but carefree. At 40 life is so much complicated, more rich, more varied than I ever imagined. So this is it. The gateway to another decade.
What will happen?
That question used to have this answer: something better will happen. Something someone somewhere better than this will happen.
And now, for the first time, I feel down to my bones that the real answer is this: I don’t know. I never ever did know really… but a combination of wishful thinking and a very rich internal life kept me imagining other scenarios.. grander vistas than just this moment.
One year ago today I was still drinking more than ever, miserably unhappy in my marriage and with my life. I’d just ended an affair and felt like giving up, like all my life was good for was raising the kids and trying not to die. It was a grim and terrible secret.
Sobriety has given me my life back, has opened up new possibilities for work, family, love, that I honestly could never have imagined, but that is all so trite compared to this simple fact: I am happy now. Not always, not forever, but in this moment.
I do not drink anymore, one day at a time. I have a place to go every day, a fellowship of people who are also trying not to drink so that they can be better stronger more loving people. In their brokenness and hope, I see something majestic and lovely.
This week I am 40. This week I have 9 months of sobriety.
I am grateful beyond words…
***
On more life happens notes:
1. The book is tooling along - 1/2 the manuscript is due this Friday… Thank you to everyone willing to slog through this first draft.
2. My parents are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary tomorrow - congratulations folks!
3. Looking forward to attending BlogHer next week sober… I’m sure it will be an entirely different experience this year
4. At Babble: 10 Signs that Daddy Isn’t Slacking Anymore…
28
Jun
Ah Summer
Since January, I’ve not worked in an office. I’ve been writing and getting out to meetings, but mostly I’ve been home with the kids. We don’t do crafts or bake pies, but we do hang around and read books and are good pals. The girls are old enough now that they play made up games and keep each other company. Even though I’m a slave waitress (thanks to Mrs. Chicken for this perfect term), fight breaker-upper, and laundry ignorer, I still find minutes here and there to write.
I’ve tried at various junctures to stay home full-time with the kids and it has never worked very well. I would get bored, or resentful, or think it was impossible, but this time it’s working. Does practice makes perfect in this case? Plenty of other mothers and fathers ruminate on the pros and cons of staying home versus working, and most folks don’t have a choice. But once you have more than two children, the cost of childcare becomes prohibitive, and staying home more viable.
When I introduce myself to people now, I say I’m a writer and a mother and for the first time neither title makes me hunch up my shoulders, or launch into an unnecessary explanation of how I spend my time.
I credit sobriety with this change in attitude, as well as AA. Without the help of both, I’d still be the cat in a wool suit on a hot summer day.
****
- Many thanks to Karen (again) for fixing my broken down old blog.
-Today at Babble: Top 5 Worst Sweet-to-Sexy Toy Makeovers (Even Holly Hobbie is a tart!!)
- My book is up to 17000 words (many of them needing massive re-writes, but still)
- I’m going to BlogHer and I’m sharing a room with her.. I can’t wait!
18
Jun
Modern Family Threesome
The concept of threesomes has been employed by unhappy spouses (or marriage partners with superior imaginations, depending on your view) since time immemorial. As an antidote to the occasional doldrums of monogamy, it seems perfectly wise and preferable to adultery. Why then can’t we imagine a similar relief from the monotonous isolation of modern-day nuclear families? My husband and I could both really use a helper sort of person around the house. Someone like Donna Reed, pretty and cheerful and wearing gowns of one kind or another, who fetches our slippers when we get home after a long day so we can lounge around and read the paper. Just the thought of this evokes deep feelings of peace and love, similar to how I feel watching Daniel Craig emerge from the blue ocean in “Casino Royale,” like all is right exactly where it should be.
Who wouldn’t want another adult around? I think kids need an adult-child ratio of at least 1:1. When you’re tired or they’re sick, 2:1 is probably more like it. Grandparents can provide some of this type of assistance, especially if your crew is as divorced and remarried as mine, but grandparents usually come with strings attached, and much less energy than they need to wrangle little people. When we have a babysitter around (every other year or so) to help with bath-time or cooking or cleaning up, it is astounding how much easier childrearing becomes. I think some of the wisdom of days gone by (boarding schools and governesses and “children should be seen and not heard”) is not fully appreciated by modern parents. We are so hands-on much of the time. Even when we work full-time, we’re full-throttle with the child psychology books and the guilt and the creeping belief that every little thing we do will land our kids in years of therapy.
12
Jun
Kinders Graduate Today
My beloved twin daughters graduate kindergarten today. They celebrated by waking up at 4am and playing tag downstairs. My love for them, at that moment, was clouded by a desire to wring their skinny little necks.
Congratulations, Josephine & Olivia! You’re such big girls now!
04
Jun
Setbacks
Next week, I’ll have 8 months sober. As a good friend reminded me recently, once you’ve put in significant time working on something, it would be a mistake to toss it all away over an old pattern, or person, no matter how alluring.
The thing about paying attention and trying to live more honestly, is that you have more accountability to yourself. It’s a good thing, but it often interferes with that old fun of “following one’s heart” (translation: doing whatever the hell you want if it makes you happy).
I’ll not claim anything even close to improvement or clarity or life is perfect, but I will say that sobriety and following a spiritual program is something I cherish now… sometimes even more than having fun, or following my natural inclinations and instincts.
Plus? I’m getting too old for this shit.
Today at Babble: When Parents Talk ‘Street’
01
Jun
Unrequited Love
When we were in high school, my older brother and I shared a 1972 bright blue Ford Pinto. It had ferns growing in the backseat, and you could see the road through the rusted out holes in the passenger side floor.
My brother was extremely popular… One girl fanted when he graduated (I kid you not) and other girls pretended to befriend me just to be near him “Hi Rachael. I want to come over and hang out. Is your brother there?” His powerful beauty and charisma spilled over to the Blue Pinto so this car became cool by association.
I was a band-nerd who didn’t talk to boys until I was 19 unless it was about God, and unfortunately hanging out with my beloved (if at times indifferent) older brother did not have the same cool-by-association effect on me.
But the Pinto was different. It was an automatic and it could go zero to 35mph in under 30 minutes. It was a love machine.
I have a warm place in my heart for junkie cars that you can pay for with cash. I was raised in a series of beaters each given names like “The Blue Bomber,” “Mystic Sea,” and “Gloria.” These were cars you could really connect with… The kind you could talk to when they failed to roll their windows down properly. The kind even 12 year old younger brothers were allowed to drive around neighborhood parking lots.
The days of driving cars with more character than safety are long-gone… but the love lives on…
