Last Friday I spent a lovely afternoon with a woman I met through one of the five (yes, five) mama/baby groups I am a part of.  When we recently discovered a mutual interest in writing we decided to get together to talk about our dreams and ambitions.  As I drove up to her house, I noticed a colorful banner fluttering in the breeze in her front yard.  “Enjoy life,” it said, which immediately put a smile on my face.  She has a lovely, airy home, full of charm and character, and I longingly admired the expansive backyard that is brimming with vegetables, for her passion is gardening.  My backyard is a mess of river rock, save for the postage-stamp-square of dirt where I attempted to plant a garden two summers ago, the only remaining evidence three spindly tomato cages, encircling desiccated vines, that now serves as a perch for songbirds.

We sat cross-legged around the blonde wood coffee table, where my friend placed a heaping bowl of scarlet cherries and a homemade hazelnut cake, draped in a tea towel.  Using a manual, European style espresso maker, she brewed good, strong coffee from the local coffeehouse that I frequent, which she poured into beautiful blue, wafer-thin cups.  It may sound silly, but this little spread, laid forth with obvious care and attention, brought me a little burst of joy.  These things matter – or at least they do to me, and it’s not often that encounter someone who shares my same sensibilities in this arena.  My immediate impulse was to run out and buy that espresso maker, make that cake, and figure out where I could procure similar cups.

When we finally got down to talking about writing, we discovered that we both struggle with a nagging doubt that we have anything new to add to our respective genres that are already rich with so many talented voices.  When she shared with me her desire to write about gardening in a way that weaves together personal anecdotes, family history, and practical advice, I thought it sounded marvelously distinctive, and I wondered why we have such difficulty recognizing our own uniqueness when others can see it so clearly.  It brought me back, as so many things do these days, to the retreat.  One night when we were deep in conversation, Sarah, a talented photographer and social psychologist, said she often needed to remind herself that, “The universe has room for all of us.”  The truth and beauty of those words struck me like a bolt of lightning and keep crackling in my conscious weeks later.

Included here just because I love this shot (photo credit: Darlene Kreutzer Paetz)

I’ve seen my lack of faith in this basic principle manifest itself in my life in a variety of ways.  Often times, when I see others engaged in some endeavor that they are enthusiastic about, I begin to plot ways in which I could implement it in my own life.  (In fact, I wrote a whole post on this subject some years ago, and my struggle obviously persists to this day.)  Although I don’t enjoy gardening, seeing someone else’s beautiful garden that obviously brings them so much joy and pleasure suddenly makes me want to want to enjoy gardening.  Before I know it I am plotting how to transform my own backyard into a similar oasis, despite the fact that I can barely maintain a sad patch of land for which experience has proven that I will quickly lose interest.  We do this all this time – with jobs, partners, clothing styles, hobbies – but it goes against the fundamental truth that the universe has room for all of our unique ways of being in the world.

Because I do not fully trust in this basic truth, I often rush to “beat others to the punch” when I feel my sharehold is being threatened.  Before I left for the retreat, I was riddled daily with anxiety that I was “falling behind” with my writing, despite the fact that I was rudderless (how can you fall behind when you don’t know where you’re going?).  I felt as if there was some shadowy figure just beyond my reach that was going to “cut ahead” of me in the cosmic lunch line, and therefore I better get moving.  I am currently reading Tina Fey’s very funny memoir Bossypants, and in it she discusses “The Myth of Not Enough,” which is essentially her way of describing the fear that grips us when we doubt that the universe has enough to provide for all of us.  She argues that in the world of improvisational acting, where you are creating something out of nothing, there is always enough to go around because you’re creating it. It is impossible to run out of something of our own limitless invention.  What an empowering thought!

Photo credit: Celina Wyss

At the crux of my mistrust in the universe’s ability to provide lies a fundamental doubt of my own uniqueness.  In a sea of 10,000 voices – people writing memoir about change, about living in the moment, about what it means to be human – I wonder how mine can ever be heard above the din.  I struggle to trust in the universe’s ability to expand to hold all of our voices and stories. During our visit, my friend shared with me one of her favorite quotes about the craft of writing from Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  “Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”  Reading those words typed onto a small slip of paper, a little something shifted into place for me.  I can’t quite articulate my unique voice in the infinite ocean of words, but I know that I write to think and to figure out what I know (and don’t know).  I write to explore my inner world and memorialize the small moments in the outer one:  the ruby cherries and the tiny cups and the banners flapping in the breeze.  I write to become conscious of the life I am living.  I’m not sure that I can say it better than the multitude of talented writers out there, but I hope I say it a little differently, a tangible show of faith that the universe can, indeed, provide for us all.

One morning last week, just before we needed to get ready for swim class, Abra fell asleep resting in the crook of my neck.  She had been tired and fussy all morning, in desperate need of a nap but refusing to sleep; but here, in the fleshy folds of my skin, she found a moment of respite.  Her eyes slowly shut, creating delicate half-moons.  Her long, thick lashes, a genetic mystery, reached toward me.  Soft sighs escaped from her bow lips.  Her tiny fist, a gentle curl of fingers, came to rest on my chest.  I breathed in tandem with her, in and out, soaking in her warmth and quiet connection. It was a moment so rare that I reached down to pick up my camera, careful not to disturb her, to document what I knew would be a fleeting moment.

Moments later, as if she realized I was working to ensnare this ephemeral thing, she abruptly woke herself, breaking the short but magical spell that had fallen over us.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of a brief time last fall when all Abra wanted was to be held.  In those earliest days of motherhood I was constantly trying to pawn her off on someone else so that I could feel, once again, unattached and unencumbered.  I propped her in a stroller, set her in an infant seat that jiggled her to sleep, placed her in a swing, and slung her over a shoulder so that I could stir a pot or write a letter with my free hand. In a desperate attempt to maintain a grasp on an existence that had been obliterated, my life revolved around devising clever ways to offload her.  I’m not sure if I created a baby that now hates to be cuddled, or if her nature just set in, but current attempts to hold her are generally futile.  If I try to cradle her in my arms, she arches her back in dramatic spasms, quickly worming her way out of my lap.  The tighter I try to hold on, the more she tries to struggle out of my grasp.

Life is always playing these kinds of tricks on us.  We squander moments that can never be recaptured. We wish to reclaim something that was once easily obtained, but now find frustratingly unavailable. The tighter we clench, the quicker the experience slides through our fingers, elusive and slippery.  All that we have is this moment; the best we can do is to hold on to it tight and then gently let it go, riding the current of life as it ebbs and flows.  I remember sitting on the stoop one evening at the retreat, the late afternoon sun warming my back, my bare feet prickly on the rough cement.  I held a glass of red wine in a stout water glass in one hand, my arm slung over my knee.  I looked out at the expanse of green that stretched down to touch the sand and the sea, absorbed the puffy white clouds, soaked in the rolling waves, feeling completely at one and content with my life.  The beauty of that moment wasn’t in trying to prolong it, but accepting that what made it sweet was that it couldn’t stretch on forever.  It wasn’t for future consumption; it couldn’t be bottled and transported.  It was a moment to be enjoyed right then and there.  And as I held Abra in my arms I felt that same feeling bubbling up, knowing that, just as sure as I etched that moment in the sands of time, the tide would wash it out to sea again.

Considering the moment (photo credit: Darlene Kreutzer Paetz)

Now I am back at home, struggling to start “close in,” trying to discern what my first step should be (the second and third steps seem a lot clearer right now).  I wish I had a little of that beautiful coastal afternoon to sprinkle on my everyday existence.  But these lines from David Whyte’s poem reverberate through my head constantly, and I am reminded to:

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

As my mind drifts back to a blissful weekend at the ocean and fast forwards to adventures and dreams on the horizon, I remind myself that the ground I am treading on right now involves swim lessons and the sweetness of a sleeping baby.  Fully inhabiting my current reality is the first step, my “close in;” it is the work that matters most.

I arrived at the grey house on the beach spiritually, emotionally, and physically depleted, having quickly handed Abra off to her father at the airport with a swift motion and a hasty goodbye.  We had already spent four ragged days in Portland, during which time Abra was unnerved by the rhythm of the city.  Each of our attempts to do the things we enjoy – visits to nice restaurants, hip clothing stores and coffee shops humming with life – were met with deep resistance on her part and resentment on ours.  Her sleep was fitful and truncated, resulting in early morning walks through Portland’s damp, deserted streets, the only sign of life the city’s swelling homeless population.  After being trapped in a 400 square-foot hotel room with a teary infant for four nights I couldn’t escape the airport’s parking garage quickly enough, where my chariot waited in the form of a gunmetal minivan to whisk me away from my troubles.

Our house

Although I wasn’t sure what to expect from this group of almost-strangers, I came prepared to make some decisions about my creative pursuits.  Most days I harbor nagging thoughts about the writing I should be doing, and I was ready to put those thoughts to rest by moving into action mode (a regular posting schedule, a visual redesign, an online marketing plan), and I thought our conversations would revolve around the online world.  What unfolded over the next four days was anything but virtual.

After an exploratory walk down the sandy spit of beach that lined the front of our house, where tentative getting-to-know-you conversations transpired in small circles, we retreated to the cozy living room and crowded on the Tiffany-blue couch and sprawled ourselves amongst a collection of wicker chairs.  I crouched on a stout leather ottoman springing like a mushroom from the carpet.  An uncomfortable hush fell over the group as we settled into that middle place between perfect strangers and kindred spirits, and it was clear that we were collectively thinking the same thought:  now what?

First steps

Meghan, our group’s de factor organizer, who has an innate gift for connecting people, began the “opening ceremonies” with a poem by David Whyte.  As her throaty voice intoned the opening lines, I felt a small space open inside of me:

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

Meghan reading (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

By the time Meghan reached the closing lines, hot tears were running down my cheeks in a fat stream, and something had shifted in the room.  Over the course of the weekend that small crack was pried wide open, flooding the space with the light and energy of this collection of women who, while disparate on the surface, proved to be true sisters in spirit.  We shared glittering pieces of our souls that had been crouching in dark corners over sunrise walks on the beach, twilight runs, communal meals, art projects, book discussions, shopping trips, photo sessions both goofy and serious, and too much red wine.  There was midday laughter and midnight tears, bedtime whispers and afternoon roars.  Our group solidified not in tentative steps but giant leaps, and the weekend unfurled in a beautiful string of days where time played tricks on us.  Being so far north so close to the solstice, the nine o’clock light often felt like late afternoon, such that we found ourselves in that rare, delicious place in life where time slips through our fingers.

Snapshots of togetherness (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

As the weekend progressed it became clear that, in each of our own ways, we were all struggling with starting “close in.”  Whether the poem set the tone for our time together or was simply the perfect message for our collective struggle I can’t say.  But what I do know is that, as we tried to create our personal “mission statements” late one evening, attaching tangible words to our faltering attempts to start close in, many of us broke wide open.  As the starry night blanketed the house I curled up in a chaise lounge in a dark corner and strained to make the words fits, arranging and rearranging them as if trying to make the pieces of a puzzle fit together.   I tried desperately to cram “writing” into the cracks, jagged edges running headlong into smooth corners.  Exhausted by my efforts, I finally gave up and collapsed into bed.  But after my second full night of sleep in nine months and a clarifying morning conversation with Darlene, the pieces began to fall into place.

Connecting (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

I thought I had come to this house by the sea to plot my path to a successful writing career.  But what I quickly discovered, wrapped in the warm embrace of this group of like-minded souls, is that I had come here to plot my path back to myself.  It wasn’t until I had stripped the worn patterns of a tired life, if only for a few days, that I could see how desperately I needed to rediscover my joy before I could do anything else.

That is starting close in.

We all have different first steps to take.  After just four short days there is already talk of leaving jobs and dusting off abandoned book proposals, resuming blogs and shedding unwanted commitments, moving houses and improving relationships.  There is talk of new creative projects and new ways of being in the world.  Someone’s mosaic tile, which we spent painstaking hours creating around the sturdy kitchen table, split clear down the middle on the trip home, an apt metaphor for how most of us left this weekend feeling.  My “close in” is more modest, but equally important.  Before I meet this group of women again next June, my work involves manifesting a new reality and realigning with my spirit, and sharing those understandings with you, dear readers, as I have time and energy.

Manifesting a new reality (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

This rejuvenating weekend was the first small step in reconnecting with my spirit and remembering what it feels like to be in sync with one’s self.  I had forgotten how much I love the water, the feel of sand in my toes, and wide swaths of green.  I had forgotten how important it is to feel deeply connected to kindred spirits.  I had forgotten my love of frilly pants, breezy shifts and hula hooping.  I had forgotten how to sing, dance, laugh and wear tiaras in public.  I had forgotten how much I love creating with my hands and appreciating beauty.  I had forgotten how much I love peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and sleep.  I had forgotten how to have fun.

One of my long-forgotten talents (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

One of the highlights of our trip to Portland was a quiet, unexpected day spent outdoors.  The skies cleared, making way for white, puffy clouds, and rather than spend another day in the frenetic pace of the city we huffed our way up to Washington Park to escape the constant thrum.  Here Abra crawled around on the dewy emerald grass at the Rose Garden, completely delighted.  We pushed our way further uphill, passing under the lush canopy of the Japanese Gardens, a cloak of silence falling over us as we entered the space.  We gazed upon sun-dappled maple trees that shone scarlet, moss-covered pagodas, murmuring streams, and narrow stone paths.  It’s not the kind of thing we would have done without Abra, our quiet soul, but for once we weren’t clinging to the past but creating a new way of being as a family in our present reality.  We were all, for once, happy.

Words cannot express how grateful I am to have been a part of this transformative weekend; it’s a testament to the power of connecting a group of like-minded women, and it’s impossible to fit all the insights and stories into a single blog post.  Over the next few weeks, I plan on expanding upon what I took away from my time with The Tribe, and how I am starting “close in” now that I’m back at home.  Thank you to my soul sisters Meghan, Sarah, Emily, Melissa, Celina, Darlene, Sophia, Rebecca, and, in absentia, Stefanie and Lindsey.

The Tribe (photo credit: Rebecca Murphy)

A few years ago I wrote a post about the power of saying “yes” in our lives.  We are trained to have restraint, to set boundaries, to limit our obligations, to conserve our emotional resources.  When it comes to taking bounding leaps of faith into the great unknown, most of us struggle mightily, myself included.  But just days after Abra was born, my friend, Meghan, approached me about a retreat she was organizing on the Oregon Coast for creative women from different walks of life, and would I be interested?  At this point I was still traipsing around the house in a nightgown at all hours, taking showers at 3 pm, and crying most days.  June seemed like an impossible future, eons away.  In my mind, Abra would be walking, talking, sleeping through the night, and eating T-bone steaks by that time, and although I wasn’t sure how I’d manage the logistics (I tend to be someone who jumps and then worries about the details later), every fiber of my being said, “Say ‘yes’!”

Over the past eight months it’s been exciting to watch Meghan’s creative brainchild grow from a flat, abstract idea on paper to a living, breathing, 3D collection of women.  We come from different states and different countries.  We are writers, artists, photographer, and filmmakers.  We are mothers, sisters, wives, and partners.  We are all spokes radiating out from Meghan’s wheel, but most of us have never met.  We have only spoken by phone a few times and have gotten to know one another through the modern marvel that is Facebook.  And next week, in Manzanita, Oregon, we will finally come together to share our stories, to help each other along our rugged creative paths, to relax, and to become, as we’ve dubbed ourselves, The Tribe.  But most importantly, I’m excited to spend time with a group of women who weren’t afraid to say “yes,” who committed their precious time and resources to one big unknown.  Is this not faith incarnate?

It’s the first time I’ve left Abra for more than a few hours, who will be with her dad two hours away, on another spit of Oregon coastline, visiting with her aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, and grandma.  Little did I know when I said “yes” so long ago that Abra would still be nursing eight times a day (my “project” the past six weeks has been pumping enough milk to sustain her for four days while watching  a nightly episode of The Wire).  I didn’t know then that she’d still be happily inching her way across the living room using her head as a pivot point, babbling nonsense syllables, and that her sleep would be a disaster.  But I’m glad I said “yes” anyway.

Think they'll survive without me?

I’ll be back after June 6 with lots of stories from our summer vacation to Portland, Oregon, and my time with The Tribe on the Oregon Coast!

I arrange the ragtag troupe of dolls in their pew, straight-backed on the tattered chintz sofa.  I open the hymnal, a faded collection of American pioneer songs bought at a tag sale, its tangerine cover graced by sweet drawings of square dancing youth.  I create an altar under the antique map of the state of Washington, as good of an altarpiece as any.  What I preach that glittering Sunday morning I cannot recall, but I know my experience with religious doctrine up until that point was spotty at best.  There was a drawing of a freckle-faced Jesus colored hastily during a brief Sunday school stint at Kent United Methodist Church.  Easters that were bathed simply in pastel eggs and trumpeting lilies.  Seething jealously each Thursday morning when the CCD kids formed a tight ring at the bus stop, hashing over the details of the previous evening.

I have always been obsessed by life’s deepest mysteries, the ones that religion delves deeply into, grapples furiously with, and dances a madcap tango to.  I reside in the vagaries of the soul, wrestle constantly with The Big Questions, and strive to feel a connection to that ephemeral something that is just beyond our grasp.  My studies in theatre and counseling were propelled by a compulsion to zip myself inside the skin of someone else in order to understand the human condition, and had the foundation of my life not been formed on a spiritual fault line, I have no doubt I would have found great satisfaction in studying theology and entering the clergy.

When Abra was born, we didn’t struggle much with what part religion would play in her young life.  “Let her choose for herself when she’s old enough to decide,” seemed to be our collective decision.  And yet my eight year-old self, the one who created ceremony out of stuffed animals and folk songs to feel connected to something bigger than herself, wondered what Abra might be missing out on.  So when my mother-in-law asked if we would consider baptizing her during our recent trip to Mexico at an historic Catholic church, my hesitation was, I admit, perfunctory.

We nose the aging Toyota 4Runner down the cobbled road leading up to Santuario de Atotonilco, kicking up plumes of dust in our wake.  We step inside the dark office where Abra’s birth certificate will be registered in the church records, and after some minor confusion about the difference between “Mexico” and “New Mexico,” we are guided towards the church across the way.  I carry Abra in the crook of my arm, her frilly white dress fluttering in the breeze as she squints against the harsh sun pouring down.  Inside the cool cathedral, surrounded by peeling frescoes, it quickly becomes apparent that we are the smallest group with the most modestly-dressed baby.   One girl, surrounded by a clutch of friends and relatives, is as pretty as a wedding cake, her long gown trailing a cascade of frothy fabric.  A little boy looks positively regal in an oyster-colored cape, the scepter the only thing missing from his royal costume.

We take a seat in one of the small chapels just off the main altar, whispering to one another as I quietly nurse Abra, who is rattled by the unfamiliar surroundings, which soothes both of us.  A wrought-iron table supporting a simple porcelain pitcher stands at the ready (the chapel with the large stone baptismal font is, unfortunately, undergoing renovation).  The small room quickly fills with people as the priest, draped in a long, white robe, steps to the front.  He begins speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, a rat-a-tat-tat that I quickly lose track of but wish desperately that I could understand.

Prayers and benedictions are spoken in unison by rote, as if everyone has walked down this well-worn path a thousand times before, and I murmur along as best I can, lagging a step behind.  Although the other three babies being baptized look alert and ready to begin their journey into the Catholic church, Abra alternates between crying and sleeping, a pendulum of energy swinging back and forth.  But each time the priest approaches her – to anoint her chest with a smudge of sticky oil, to sprinkle a shower of holy water on her tiny forehead – she stares intently into his eyes, a wave of calm washing over her in a way that causes a wave of chills to crash over me.

When the moment of her baptism comes, we approach the rickety table and the priest leans over and whispers, “Donde esta la concha?” My mother-in-law turns to me searchingly, her eyes translating, “Where is the shell?”  Lost in the script of the day, I had no idea that we were already to the part where the dainty scallop, used to trickle water over her head, was to play its part.  In its absence, Abra receives a steady cascade of water from that obliging pitcher, matting the fuzzy tuft of hair to her head and causing her to issue a cry that reverberates through the stony chapel.  But she is calmed once again when her baptismal candle is lit, casting a soft glow across her face and transfixing her gaze.  She reaches repeatedly for the flickering flame, as if she is reaching out to touch tradition itself.

At the end of the ceremony we make our way to the small altar to have our picture taken with the priest, as if we are posing for a photo op with a head of state.  Unsure whether to smile or look stoic, I awkwardly hold up Abra’s baptismal certificate for display, as if I have just won a major award.  I have fumbled my way through this experience, utterly in the dark, unsure what was coming around the bend.  I am once again that skinny eight year-old girl clutching her makeshift hymnal, standing at the fringes of something bigger than herself, wanting desperately to be a part of the ritual and ceremony but not quite knowing the steps.  But I am closer than I’ve ever been because, whether we are willing to admit it or not, our children are the unwitting vessels of the lost pieces of ourselves.

When I ask Maikael later to translate the priest’s opening words, he says, “Being baptized is just the beginning of the journey.”  Who knows what choices my daughter will ultimately make in her spiritual life; that’s for her to decide.  But I hope she’ll always know that she is connected to a force greater than herself; that she feel a little less lost on the journey than I have; that, like a flickering flame, spirit and faith be so palpable that she need only reach out and touch it with her fingertips.

I’m back!  And I’ve missed you.  Sorry it’s taken me so long to get my act together after our epic journey to Mexico.  Abra barely slept for two weeks and, well, it’s taken me twice as long as that to get back on track.  But I’m here.  Thanks for waiting.

“You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck.”
~Rumi

It’s a strange thing to wake up one day and literally find yourself with a completely new life. That I felt this way in the inky hours of September 7, when I was handed a screaming, slippery pink baby to care for, is not the surprising part. The surprising part – at least to me – is that I’ve felt this way every morning since.  Four and a half months later, I still have moments, upon waking from a deep slumber, when I am briefly confused by the cries I hear issuing from the baby monitor.  Not a single day has been easy, and when I think about everything – everything! – that’s still to come, I can’t help but feel completely overcome.  My daily mantra, which helps me to cope with this anxiety, is a familiar one.  It’s what’s gotten me through the most difficult moments of my life:  my mother’s death, the rigors of graduate school, some truly awful jobs.  It won’t always be like this.

It’s one thing to bear down and grit your teeth through some passing trauma; it’s quite another to wish away years of your life with someone who is, by all accounts, a force of joy.  After enjoying an adulthood crafted around order and routine, of rushing around and Doing Important Things, my days are now untethered, and I often have the feeling that I am unmoored from my own life.  As I sit eating large spoonfuls of oatmeal in the all-too-early hours of the morning, the sunlight pouring through the kitchen window and throwing long shadows across the heart-shaped face that stares expectantly back at me, I am mired down by the thought of a day that stretches ahead of me like a long, open highway, and I wonder how I will fill the vacant hours that lie ahead.

But fill them I do.  While someone reminds me at least once a week that “the days are long but the years are short,” I feel as if the days are long and the days are short.  Sometimes I am caught up in a burst of activity, as Abra and I dash between appointments, mama and baby yoga classes (yes, seriously), and coffee dates with newfound mommy friends, which leave both her and I exhausted.  Other days run slow as molasses, a sluggish creep to 7 pm involving shaking rattles, eating lunch by myself standing up, and rinsing out diapers, the outcome of which is an entirely different kind of exhaustion.  My life is a strange mix of absolute boredom and frantic activity, and as different as the days can be, they share one thing in common:  I am rarely in my body, aware of what’s going on around me.  I am speeding ahead or dragging my heels, but rarely attuned to the actual rhythm of the day.

Earlier this week both Abra and I were itchy to get out of the house.  It was a brisk but crystal clear morning, so I covered Abra’s head in a sunny yellow knit cap with a curlicue of yarn on top and strapped her to my front in my trusty wrap.  As I began to walk to our neighborhood park with Abra’s head nestled into my chest, lulled by the motion of my steady stride, my heartbeat, the whoosh of the cars speeding by, the crankiness that had marked the morning began to melt away.  I spoke softly to her about everything that we passed.  A bush, a dog, a house.  When we rounded the first bend of the park I heard a tap tap tap overhead and paused to see what was making the noise.  There in the naked branches above me, much to my delight, was a woodpecker!  I happen to be a big admirer of birds, although I know embarrassingly little about them, and I had never seen a woodpecker before.  He didn’t look a thing like Woody, but sported beautiful black and white jacquard plumage.  His beak, a graceful black golf tee, rapped intently at the bark, and both Abra and I gazed searchingly skyward.  Soon Steve the Mailman – who has to be the nicest employee in the history of the United States Postal Service – came along and craned his neck in the same direction.  “You see something?” he asked.  “I think it’s a woodpecker,” I replied.  We stood there for a few moments on the sidewalk, two amateur birders discussing the local avian population.  “If I hadn’t seen you looking up I never would have noticed he was there,” Steve said.  Soon he continued on his route, but I found myself reluctant to move, my feet planted firmly in place.

It occurred to me that I never would have seen that woodpecker had I not heard him first, and I heard him because I was listening, and I was listening because, for a fleeting moment, I had been riding the rhythm of the day.  I realized that for once I was not running or stalling, but simply walking a steady pace, one foot in front of the other, just as we should all be moving through life.  That rhythm, a sturdy backbeat, is always thrumming in the background, but it’s so pervasive that it often renders itself mute.  But this new life of mine is offering me the chance to set the tempo – to speed up or slow down as I need and choose – and to more readily access the sweet music, always available, that surrounds me.

When I finally peeled my feet from the sidewalk and directed them back into the park I felt something I don’t feel very often:  not happy, but content. I’m not sure if it was watching Abra’s cheery hat bobbing along, or the novelty of a feathered friend, or simply being grateful for the dawning awareness that, in that moment, life was good. But maybe, with more moments like these, I can come to see the other side of my mantra:  it won’t always be like this.

It was one of those awful weeks, the kind that make you question just where your life is going.  The baby slept in 20-minute spurts, not long enough to tackle the mounds of laundry that had multiplied throughout the house, or cut up vegetables for dinner, or return any of the phone messages that plagued my voicemail inbox.  She shrieked like a banshee when I placed her down, even when I promised that it was just for a minute, causing me to cart her around the house and show off the rooms as if I was escorting her through a museum gallery.  She sobbed through her baths, which carried on deep into the evening, scraping away at my patience.  Dinners were made – and eaten – in haste.    I finally began to understand what my mother meant when, as a child, she would say, “You’re on my last nerve.”

“I miss my old life,” I lamented to Maikael in the few quiet hours we have together after the baby is sound asleep, a now-familiar refrain.  In these twilight times, the only thing I can manage to muster energy for is an episode of Breaking Bad before falling into bed.  I am roused from a deep sleep a few hours later to a muffled cry through the baby monitor, and as I wait for her to do one of two things –  soothe herself back to sleep or cry more intensely, demanding milk – the permanence of my situation weighs heavily on me.  This new life is a long lash of ribbon that unspools itself into eternity; I simply cannot see beyond the interminable sleepless nights, too much to do and too little time, so much giving and so little receiving.

Then, in a flash, things change.  I receive a call from someone close and dear to me, sharing the heart-shattering news that her pregnancy has mysteriously ended at 17 weeks, this baby that was conceived just days after Abra was born.  One pregnancy began in the afterglow of the other, forming a link between two families.  As I set aside Abra’s used baby clothes and catalogued countless ideas for baby gifts over the past four months, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that these two souls were intertwined, one life flowing into the next.  And now he was gone, the chain broken and set adrift.

Yesterday evening I found myself flipping through the memory book I painstakingly maintained during my pregnancy, lingering on the photo of me taken at exactly 17 weeks.  It was the first week that I had begun to look pregnant, a slight bulge protruding from above my waistband that communicated to the world, “I’m going to be a mother soon.”  A wide grin spreads across my face, and although we didn’t yet know that Abra was Abra, I felt confident there was a girl snuggled deep inside of me.  She had appeared to me in countless dreams, always as a girl with saucer eyes that stared intently into mine, and I felt, quite simply, that I knew her.  Although she was no more than a slight swell in my middle, she was already so wanted, so loved.  The woman who smiled back at me radiated confidence and certainty, and I could scarcely imagine then that same woman, less than a year later, would feel so shaky in motherhood.

In the days that followed that phone call I felt the emotional aftershocks of the news in unexpected ways, seismic ripples radiating from the very core of my being.  I discovered myself holding Abra closer, kissing the soft, plump apples of her cheeks.  I whispered, “Your mama loves you” in her ear, a constant chorus even as her sobs drowned out my words.  I smiled broadly at her in the mirror, sending light into the crinkles at the corner of my eyes that seem to dig in deeper every day.  When she giggled back at me, a dry, Eddie Haskell laugh, my spirit lifted.  What my dear one wouldn’t give for this moment with her boy.

Although he rests in a dusty family plot hundreds of miles away, he is still with us.  The delicate tie that bound one life to another — that binds us all — has not vanished; though invisible, it is felt.  His soul lingers, his absence a stark reminder of all I am missing right before my eyes.  We do our best to cup life in our hands, to hold the sweet things in our grasp, to let the bitter slip softly through our fingers.  Nothing lasts forever: not sleepless nights, or girlish squeals, nor life itself.

Posted by Elizabeth

Yesterday I carefully wrapped my collection of bluebird ornaments in their crinkly tissue nests, ready for next year.  We hauled the Christmas tree, its boughs fringed in brown, to the courtyard, where it lies in wait until we can manage to find the time to recycle it.  My modest decorations are cozy in their boxes, down for a long winter’s nap.  The last of the tamales are gone; the Christmas ham is fading into memory.  The holidays are over.

The New Year rushed in, kicking up her icy skirts, as temperatures lingered all week in the single digits.  It was too cold to tarry outside for long, and we were too stuffed from the holidays – emotionally and physically – to do much beyond eat leftovers, have a meal out, watch a movie, do the laundry, make a few phone calls.  Rather than feel sad that the sparkle of the holidays has lost its luster, I’m glad to put them to rest.  In the midst of the yearly fanfare, despite my best intentions otherwise, there is always too much doing and never enough being.  The month of December swallows me whole, and by the time it spits me out on January 1 I am ready to get back to life as usual, to resume my routine, to have things be normal. The dull tarnish of winter suits me just fine.

Nothing thrills me more than opening a fresh datebook and being met by swaths of open space.  The New Year is what “life in pencil” is all about, a time when possibilities seem limitless, when opportunity is at our fingertips, when change is palpable.  Even those amongst us who usually shy away from change are swept up in the allure of new ways of being and the promise of new beginnings.  This is the time of year when I set grandiose goals, when I add items to my ever-expanding “to do” list in a dizzying flurry, when I imagine the ways I want my life to be more, bigger, better.

But this year feels different.  Maybe it’s the excess of the holidays still gnawing at me, or the lingering reality of deflated expectations, or the fact that I haven’t slept well in days.  Today, rather than eagerly filling those blank calendar pages with goals and ambitions, I find myself protective of the space, wanting to hold these vast tracts of nothingness close.  Like most of us, my days begin with an impossible list of tasks to accomplish, and from the moment I wake to the second my head hits the pillow I am in perpetual motion, a whirling dervish of getting things done. And when I fail to cross off everything on my list – and I rarely get everything done – disappointment tears at me.  On those odd occasions that I accomplish everything I set out to, I don’t feel the satisfaction I anticipate, but find myself simply adding more items to the list.  It is a Sisyphean task.

I’ve tried everything to maximize my time, from multitasking to mindfulness, but I am always left in a tizzy, the equation never equaling gratification.  The only solution, it seems, to getting the most out of my days without feeling perpetually at the end of my tether is simply to do less.  I know from the start that it will take tremendous willpower to resist the pull of productivity, which undermines my very self-worth.  I understand the trade-off.  Phone calls and emails won’t be immediately returned.  Letters will go unanswered in greater stretches.  Three grocery trips will be consolidated into one.  There will be haystacks of clean clothes in the laundry room for days, rather than hours, at a time.  Nothing will happen as quickly as I’d like.  Saying “no” without guilt will be my daily practice. But my hope is that, in return, I will be rewarded with life’s intangible pleasures, more unplanned, idyll hours, the ones that open themselves to reveal the things that matter most.  My hope is that I won’t feel so wholly exhausted — spiritually, physically, and emotionally –at the end of the day.  I hope to feel more like myself again.

Today is my first practice at doing less.  It is my dad’s 63^rd birthday, and he has always lamented the misfortune of being born in the afterglow of the holidays, when people have tired of revelry, when they have done too much and can’t muster the energy for one more celebration.  His birthday gifts are often purchased slapdash, or worse yet, he falls victim to the Christmas/birthday gift combination.  And I admit, I’ve fallen prey to this myself.  Perhaps if I did less in December – and the rest of the year – I’d have more energy for January.  Last week, with a million things to do, I set aside a soulful hour on a dark afternoon to make a tin of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, which I mailed along with a card that made me laugh out loud, knowing how much my dad appreciates something home-baked and a good pun.  I emailed this photo to my dad early this morning so that it’ll be the first thing he sees upon opening his inbox.  I’m setting aside the to-do list to make a special video call to him this afternoon.  Today I won’t get done everything I need to, but hopefully my spirit — and someone else’s — will shine a little brighter.

How are you rewriting your life this year?

Posted by Elizabeth

The goal seemed simple enough: to watch A Christmas Story before the day was out.  The week leading up to December 25 had been a flurry of activity, filled with last-minute shopping excursions, a dinner party with new friends, a trip to the Mexican grocer for special cuts of meat to make my mother-in-law’s posole.  But now the whole day stretched before us, long and languorous.  There would be plenty of time for relaxation and leisure, for watching movies and opening gifts, for basking in the warmth of our first Christmas as a family of three.  Even the ham, ordered from a small smokehouse in Kentucky, came fully cooked.

I awoke at 1:45 am, three and a half hours earlier than normal, upon hearing Abra’s cries through the baby monitor.  Usually an efficient eater, she nursed for nearly an hour, and then I was up at six, this time for good.  Bleary-eyed, I put on the coffee and started the balloon buns, a sugary breakfast bread that my mother made every Christmas morning growing up. Before I knew it it was 10 am, and we hadn’t touched any of the small mountain of gifts that had multiplied under the tree – many for a baby that was unaware of what day it was.  Fussy and malcontented, Maikael and I took turns dandling Abra on our knee while we peeked into stockings and tore through wrapping paper.  Normally a process that we give time and attention to, our focus was fractured and diffuse.  “Why don’t we take a break?” Maikael offered, but time felt as if it was weighing heavily upon me. Abra’s mood steadily declined, and soon a “let’s just get through this” attitude took hold.   Already feeling harassed, I dashed into the kitchen to take the balloon buns from the oven, only to find the $16 marshmallows from Williams-Sonoma I had tucked into the dough now lacquered to my muffin tin, creating an oozing mess.

Determined to create the special memories I had planned, I decided it would be an ideal time to take Christmas photos.  My Aunt Nancy created a beautiful needlepoint stocking for Abra, and I was eager to capture a few shots of her in her sweet plaid Christmas dress holding the stocking that contained the one gift I had purchased for her: a grossly overpriced wooden rattle that, I was sure, would be passed down through the generations.  Abra showed zero interest in the toy, quickly dropping it in favor of a cheap, plastic ring, and tugged at the faux fur collar on her dress until she dissolved into tears.  Still in our pajamas, we propped Abra on our laps to make video calls to our parents: she slept through the call to my dad, her head lolling in the crook of Maikael’s arm, and cried through the call to my mother-in-law.

Night had fallen, and with a crying baby strapped to me I scurried around the kitchen whipping up side dishes to accompany our ham, leaving a wake of dirty pots and pans.  I congratulated myself on having made the decision earlier in the week to buy store-bought rolls.  By the time we sat down to dinner at the dining room table the china had been pushed aside in favor of our everyday dishes, paper napkins were slung across our laps, the candles sat unlit, Abra’s tights sagged around her ankles, and I popped two aspirin along with my glass of wine.

Later that evening, as I sat in the soft glow of the Christmas tree and quietly nursed Abra, I flipped through my friend’s photos of their Christmases on Facebook.  Here I saw a twirling carousel of happy memories, smiling children, clinking glasses, annual traditions, plenty of good cheery.  Reflected back at me was the Christmas I had hoped for myself, and I couldn’t help but feel overcome by sadness as I wondered where I had gone wrong.  In the weeks leading up to Christmas I had been the envy of the new mothers I know.  “How lucky you are,” they said, “to get to set your own traditions as a family of three.”  But the day had passed in an inky blur, a parade of unmet, unrealistic expectations, filled with more tears than smiles.  Rather than taking the day moment by moment – whatever those moments might have contained – I barreled through, accumulating a lump of disappointments along the way.  In the process of manifesting a predetermined experience I had squandered the very real experience that stared me squarely in the eyes.  The real sadness was not that I missed out on a picture-perfect holiday, but that I didn’t let the day unfold and simply be what it would be.

Just as becoming a family doesn’t happen overnight, neither does forming its traditions.  They don’t materialize out of thin air but gently bubble forth, flowing from one generation into the next.  I was so eager to will this Christmas into existence, to pump artificial life into its being, that I failed to let it breathe on its own.  When I think about the moments of joy that have marked this past week, they are the ones that sprung forth naturally:  a small and impromptu tamal-making party, Maikael and I both being present to watch Abra roll over for the first time, playing a goofy children’s game on Christmas Eve, watching the luminarias flicker in the darkest hour of the night.  None of these appeared on any list.

By the time I put Abra to bed on Christmas I was too tired to watch A Christmas Story, but popped it in the DVD player anyway.  I only made it half way through the movie before my eyelids became heavy.  “I’ll finish it tomorrow,” I promised myself.  But real life swept in, leaving it, like so many priorities these days, unfinished.  Maybe next year.  Or perhaps it’s time to start a new tradition.

The holidays — and life in general — are fraught with expectations.  How did you handle the expectations — unrealistic and otherwise — this season?  How might you rewrite the experience and do it differently next year?

Posted by: Anne

How often do we harbor goals that go unvoiced?  Whether it’s learning to play the piano at age 50, or becoming a chef at age 18, we often choose to keep our fantasies tight within our own daydreams, never uttering them for fear of ridicule or someone simply saying, “Why?”  We think this provides safety, but by keeping these goals private, we do ourselves a great disservice. 

Currently, I’m teaching a class for college freshmen about the unpredictable nature of career development.  We’re examining the career paths of famous modern figures—from JK Rowling to Steve Jobs—and seeking sources of their success.  It’s probably no surprise that these successful figures had no clue where they’d be at age 18, and achieved their success via circuitous routes.  But I’m learning that one thing is certain—it’s important to tell people what you want. 

As we traced JK Rowling’s path to authorship, I was struck by the fact that she rarely spoke of her work.  Not even her mother knew of the story brewing within her.  In case you haven’t heard, she still went on to achieve fame and fortune and to achieve her lifelong goal of becoming a published author.  But she did it quietly—privately.  I wonder if she’d spoken her dream out loud, if there might have been more people to cheer her on and perhaps even connect her to other budding authors, or perhaps more importantly, editors.

You see, often we assume people will laugh at our goals when actually…those very people could provide a crucial link to new mentors or new opportunities.  The more vocal we are about our goals and ambitions, the more likely we are to have an opportunity fall in our lap.  As I often tell my students—it’s kind of like dating.  Nobody can set you up if they don’t know you’re available. 

So, the next time you’re itching to tell someone about that secret desire to make a short film, or dance the tango, how about just telling them.  They quite possibly know someone who knows someone who can take you out of your head, and into reality.  Success involves risks of all kinds, the first being simply saying your dreams out loud. 

Have you ever told someone about a dream or goal, only to have them connect you with someone else?  Or am I totally off and it’s backfired on someone?