Fall blew in over the weekend.  On Saturday morning Abra and I took an early morning walk, donning jackets for the first time in months as we braced ourselves against the wind and cold that stirred around us.  I noticed that, literally overnight, the trees had begun to shed their leaves, leaving a carpet of crunchy brown at their feet.  Although Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer it rarely feels that way in New Mexico, with hot days often lingering well into October.  But this year feels different, for reasons not just pertaining to the weather.  It’s funny to have a child born on the cusp of a season.  The turn toward fall has taken on added weight and meaning, as I am discovering that the years are suddenly delineated in new ways.  Waking up on September 8 felt a bit like New Year’s morning; change was palpable as the world opened itself to new possibilities.  As an adult I don’t feel this same shift on my birthday – the world operates in fundamentally the same way as it did the day before – but beginning year two alongside Abra opens up a world of freedoms that I’ve been longing for.

Fall is here

No one knows how they’ll react when a baby enters their lives, which is part of why making the leap to parenthood, in its enormity and permanence, is so terrifying.  Our fundamental beliefs about ourselves are both challenged and confirmed, rattling the delicate cage that encircles the core of our beings.  It can be grossly uncomfortable to discover that you are not the person you thought you were, capable of actions and feelings you didn’t know you were capable of, even if they are largely positive.  In the same breath, the rigors and stresses of parenthood reinforce personal truths which, while unsettling, has the potential to be deeply clarifying.

Although I might have listed “independent” as an auxiliary personality trait – important, but not at the top of the list – this past year revealed otherwise.  I visited a psychic many years ago who described my personality as a horse running free in a big, fenced-in pasture.  “Even if you don’t see the fences on a day-to-day basis, you know they’re there.”  In other words, I need to be free to roam wild while sensing the parameters, and most of my life has passed in this bounded-boundless way.  But this past year?  I felt as if I was constantly running into fences.   I remember when Abra was about three weeks old we encountered a day that I’ve come to refer to as “The Terrible Saturday.”  I spent ten hours in a chair trying to nurse a baby that didn’t want to eat.  After frantically calling Heidi, who wisely suggested that I get out of the house for a change to scenery, I took a late afternoon walk around our park.  The ill-fitting maternity shirt I wore was covered in vomit.  My hair was a mess.  I had hardly slept the night before.  Feeling a bit like Dracula emerging from his crypt in the midday sun, I squinted against the glare of life going on around — and without — me.  As I took in a park full of carefree people enjoying a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, fat, hot tears began rolling down my cheeks as I pushed the stroller around the park, for in that moment all I saw was a future of being tied down to an oversized chair stretching before me.

My souful daughter, taken this week

Now, months later, I am able to reframe my situation as not tied down but tethered, and certainly not as intensively as those early months demanded. As the scope of her world widens, Abra needs me perhaps not less but in different ways – ways that, I’m beginning to see, involve a lot more independence on each of our parts.  And I can already tell that the wild horse in me is better suited to this stage of parenting.  So with the simple flip of a calendar, a new season of my life rushed in last week.  I finally feel as if I’m on the cusp of reclaiming parts of myself that circumstances have required me to set to the side.  I’ve got some exciting plans on the horizon that I’m looking forward to sharing with you in the coming months as I prepare to stretch my wings again:

• I am getting back into shape!  I just started a “Couch to 5K” program, and am reviving my lapsed yoga practice.
• The next four Thursday mornings I will take a class that my friend, Nissa, is hosting  in her beautiful backyard garden called, “Inside, Outside:  Exploring Ourselves Through the Garden.” (Isn’t that the best title?)  I look forward to learning more about myself and gardening.
• After years of intending to go, I am finally going to make it to the Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.  As I’ve written before I’m passionate, although largely uneducated, about winged creatures, and the sight of wintering sandhill cranes is supposed to be breathtaking.  In other news, I was completely delighted when one of Abra’s first words was “bird.”
• In two weeks I am going to Dani Shapiro’s memoir-writing workshop at Kripalu, a long-held dream.  As a bonus, I am rooming with my blog friend, Kristen, of Motherese.  It promises to be a magical weekend.
• Have you heard of Freedom?  It’s a productivity application for your computer that locks you away from the internet for up to eight hours at a time.  I think it’s what I need to help me cut down on my on-line time.  This may be my last “full-time” year with Abra and I’d like to create memories with her that don’t involve spending hours a day on Facebook.
• Now that I’m no longer operating in survival mode, I am going to start taking some tangible steps towards starting a writing career.  I’ve got some exciting news to share on that account in a few weeks!

Like my friend Meghan, I’m a big believer in putting it all out there and seeing what flows back.  While scary and vulnerable, there’s real power in concretizing your goals.  So, in the words of Meghan, “Universe, do your thing.”

What goals are you working toward right now?  Do you consider yourself independent, or is that phrase fraught?

Last week I had lunch at a friend’s house, and as we munched on chicken salad sandwiches she asked me what I had been up to since I last saw her.  I stared at her blankly.  Not only could I not remember the last time I’d seen her, I couldn’t recall a single thing I’d done, my memories an inky smudge.  Time has taken on a funny quality this summer.  Even sitting here today, typing these words, I struggle to remember how I spent the days – which felt so full and packed at the time – that made up this season.  I know I’m not alone in feeling that summer has disappeared before my eyes like a clever magic trick, all of the goals, dreams and best intentions having slipped through my fingers once again.  Every May my friend, Meghan, and I excitedly share our summer plans through letters penned on milky sheets of stationery, and every August we regret everything we didn’t get around to.  (I wish I’d planted a garden!  I never made it to the summer concern series!  We didn’t take a single road trip!)

Working back through time, my friend and I finally calculated that it had been a month since we’d last seen each other.  So rattled was I that an entire month of my life was a complete blur that I sat down at my computer to thumb through the photos I’d taken on my iPod to jog my memory:

Adventures in eating

Dinner and drinks on the patio, enjoying the sunset

The children's museum

An early morning at the Botanical Gardens

Taking a breather in Santa Fe

Learning to stand

Summer storms

Two exceptionally good books

What struck me is what I suspected all along:  life had been full, but unremarkable.  There were were no major mileposts to mark my journey.  My camera was crammed with everyday moments, small but special.  When, I wonder, will I finally adopt the mindset that those moments are the mileposts?

Despite my sadness that the summer has passed me by, I’ve spent the past few weeks moaning incessantly about the heat, which presses down on me from all directions.  At the grocery store I skip the strawberries, which have passed from small and succulent to overly large and dry, as if they’re trying unsuccessfully to hang on to the season.   As I took a walk around the park this morning I felt a chilly bite in the air, the first blush of fall.  A small thrill shivered through me when I heard the rumble of a big yellow school bus as it wended it way through the streets, marking the first day of school. I am ever-conflicted, lamenting what didn’t happen, wishing away what did, pining for what’s to come.  Here I am, singing summer’s siren song before Labor Day is even here.  The truth is, one of my favorite things about living in New Mexico is that we will be blessed with warm days well into October.  There is no reason to write off the season quite yet, and in these waning days I can keep reaching for those delights I haven’t gotten around to (yet):

homemade ice cream
making a peach pie
a trip to the local pool
an early morning walk in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains

The garden can wait until next year.

On Sunday morning, just as I had gingerly placed Abra in her crib for her morning nap and crept out of her room, I rammed my baby toe into the doorframe.  Hard. I exhaled a quiet expletive, careful not to wake the baby, shaking my foot vigorously.  Already waves of hot pain were radiating through my toes, the smallest one ballooning to an angry red.  I have a penchant for spraining the parts of my body that seem inconsequential to daily locomotion, but once rendered useless prove to be a major inconvenience (you don’t know how much you use your toes until one of them is out of commission).  These injures aren’t serious enough to merit a trip to the doctor, but are just painful enough to slow me down for a day or two.  Over the years I’ve learned that, whenever this happens, it’s a somatic reminder that I’m doing too much, moving too quickly through life, absentmindedly tackling too many things.  It’s my body’s way of saying, “Hey, if you didn’t get the memo from your subconscious that you’re overloaded, I’m going to force you to rest.”

It was about this time that I noticed a canker sore had erupted, yet another sign that I was under too much stress.  I didn’t feel overloaded, but I knew I must be.  I thought about what I’d been doing lately.  While I’ve been having fun, life is full, constantly scheduled and in a state of perpetual motion. I recalled a dream I had last month, still visceral.  I am a big deliver in dreams as messengers, delivering the letters that we refuse to open in our waking lives.  The details of the dream were fuzzy, as they so often are, but I awoke in a sweaty tangle of sheets with the clear thought that I needed to do less and flow more with life.  Not quite sure how to go about doing either of those things I promptly forgot the dream and carried on with my too-busy life, my appointment book bulging with obligations, just as I proceeded to ignore this painful telegraph from my body.  I refused to ice it or elevate it, insisting on powering through what I had already deemed would be a productive Sunday.  By evening I was hobbling around the house, dragging my foot along behind me like Richard III, the inner quadrant of my toe having turned a deep shade of purple.

I finally relented, letting Maikael take over bathtime duties while I propped myself up on the couch with a bag of ice cocooned around my foot and dipped into Ann Patchett’s new book, State of Wonder, which I started over a week ago but had barely made a dent in.  The next morning my foot still ached, and as I limped around the kitchen making breakfast Maikael suggested that he could stay home and watch Abra, a surprisingly physical task, so that I could rest my foot for the day.  I looked at my day planner and a full day stared back at me:  a morning walk with a friend, a play date, a scheduled phone call, a trip to the gym for which I’d booked our babysitter. It seemed silly – two perfectly capable adults leaving their work behind because of one trivial toe – but as that familiar throbbing started up again I conceded.

After rearranging my day I stationed myself back on the couch, flipping open my book, while Maikael took Abra for a walk.  I lost myself in the story, a rarity at 8 am on a Monday morning.  I put Abra down for her nap and read some more, pausing only to reposition my bag of ice.  Maikael fixed me lunch; then I took a nap, and read some more.  Late in the afternoon I ventured out briefly to visit my friend, where we lingered over coffee and raspberry bars while our girls played together.  Once Abra went to bed Maikael and I watched an episode of a new series we’ve just become hooked on.  Then I curled up in bed and read a little longer, having reached the halfway point of my book.  I can’t tell you the last time I read half of a book in a day, but I do know that as I drifted off to sleep I realized that I felt good.  And I found myself longing for more days like this one.

Today it is back to business as usual.  But I’m surprised how beneficial taking one full day to recharge – rather than brief snatches of time over a week or a month, as I tend to do – was to my health, both physical and mental.  Sometimes our misguided attempts to be productive end up setting us further behind.  Sometimes what we most need to move forward is rest.  Our bodies are speaking to us all the time, a conversation flowing through our veins.  I remember, just before leaving a particularly stressful job a number of years ago, that I developed a mysterious tick in my eye.  I knew then that the herky jerky muscles, dancing their convulsive tango, were a message that I needed to quit, and just as soon as I did my eye returned to normal.  I remind myself daily that this all-consuming job that I’ve embarked on — and life itself — is a marathon, not a race.  And like any marathon we’re entitled to a pit stop every now and then.

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)

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?

Forget immaculate conceptions:  the real Christmas miracle is that I managed to get a tree up this year.  We had grand plans to journey deep into the Jemez Mountains to chop down our own towering pine, but in the end we never made it further than the nursery a mile from our house, a mad dash between midday feedings.  We shouldered the tree into the house while Abra watched from her carseat perched on the sidewalk, prompting a neighbor to slow down and ask if we needed any help.  Once inside, our tree trimming was constantly interrupted by a nonstop barrage of infant demands, and in the end it took two days to decorate a not-very-big tree.

While Cooks Illustrated promised me that baking three batches of Christmas cookies would take no more than two hours, mine stretched into an all-day affair, each round punctuated by a nursing session.  Abra wailed while Ol’ Blue Eyes crooned White Christmas in the background, and I couldn’t pick her up because I was too busy ferrying sizzling cookie sheets from an oven chugging on overdrive.

My Christmas decorations largely consist of boughs of holly hastily selected while waiting in the check-out line at Trader Joe’s.

Nearly all of my gifts were bought online or during frantic five-minute dashes into stores, and any vision of sugarplum fairies is blocked by Abra’s activity gym, an albatross that ruins any picture-perfect view of Christmas cheer.

My Christmas cards were designed piecemeal over two weeks, in snatches of time during brief naps or bouncing a fussy baby on one knee while navigating Tiny Prints’ website with one hand.

In short, I don’t feel like I’ve “done” the holidays very well this year.  Nor have I been very attentive to my daughter.  These two competing forces have demanded much of my time and energy this December, and as a result both have suffered.  Every plan has been executed with half-baked precision, which has left me feeling frazzled and incompetent on all fronts.  But I was reminded that good enough is often good enough when I brought those three batches of cookies to my nursing mother’s support group yesterday afternoon.  As soon as I snapped open the cheery tins the women flocked to the cookies like vultures on carrion, giving thanks between crispy bites, expressing wonder that I’d had time to even make cookies.

So rather than berate myself for all that I never got around to this holiday season, or the fact that so much was accomplished in haste, I will remind myself that it truly is a miracle that I accomplished as much as I did.  My heart was in the right place.  My daughter is still alive and smiling (most of the time).  There are more things I could do, but I’ve decided enough is enough.  I’ve thrown away the to-do list and instead spent the past few days creating a “Fun List,” whose items I will gleefully check off while Maikael is off the next two weeks.  There is a boatload of Oscar-buzzing films to see (if we can wrangle a babysitter).  I plan on cozying up to watch two of my favorite Christmas movies at some point before the 25th.  Maikael and I have a dinner out to a swanky restaurant planned, as well as a long-anticipated lunch at a divey, but delicious, taqueria. I plan on holing up one day for a Breaking Bad marathon over Venezia pizza (does it get more perfect than having a Breaking Bad marathon in Albuquerque?).

In between it all we will spend a low-key Christmas at home, just being together and starting our own traditions as a family of three.  And that really is a miracle.

Posted by Anne

Every so often, for his work, my husband is “on call”.  At any moment his cell phone could ring, calling him into the office for an unspecified length of time.  On weekdays, when our evenings are too short to begin with, I’m not a fan of call.  Holidays are even worse.  But on plain old weekends?  It’s another story.  For his sake, I should totally hate weekends on call.  And yet, I’m embarrassed to say…it can be kinda nice.  Last weekend was one of those weekends.  Here’s what I loved:

1.  We don’t make plans.  Usually, weekends are a time when we catch up doing.  That 8-mile hike we’ve always meant to do.  That restaurant we wanted to try.  Visits to relatives.  But since my husband can’t be counted on to remain available, we don’t plan anything that we wouldn’t want interrupted.  Hence, a weekend of rented videos, simple meals at home or a burger at the plain old pub.  I’m prevented from overscheduling my generally overscheduled life. 

2.  The day follows no apparent structure.  We literally have to take the day as it comes.  I have to play everything by ear.  Remember when you were a kid, and weekends were full of, well, not much?  You might do homework, you might have a t-ball game, but otherwise you just sorta hung out?  Those are “on-call weekends” for me, and they’re sadly very rare. 

3.  We’re less productive.  We don’t tackle big projects.  In the moments when poor hubby isn’t working his tail off, the last thing he wants to do is something like help me clean the garage.  So projects are put off, and being idle is savored. 

4.  Girl Night.  Husband on call?  A great time to go to that ballet with the girls.  Or see that romantic comedy.  He’s grateful to get out of it. 

5.  We cherish the little moments.  Because we never know when our weekend activities will get interrupted, I’m much better at sitting and just being.  When he walks in the door after a long stretch at the office, it’s so easy to drop whatever I’m doing, fix him a snack, and snuggle up on the sofa.  And just be together.

I have to say…I feel a little guilty about all this.  When Monday rolled around, my husband looked at me and said, “Wow, I’m glad I’m not on call.”  And yes, I am too.  So here’s the challenge—why can’t I have these weekends without the imposed structure of “call”?  Next weekend, is it back to tackling projects and schedules?  I hope not.  For his sake and my own, perhaps I could replicate one of these weekends without, you know, my husband having to work through it.  Just a thought. 

Do you spend your weekends idly, or productively?  Or do you achieve that perfect balance? 

Posted by Elizabeth

It’s hard to believe that Abra will be five weeks old tomorrow, the time having flown by in a watery blur.  For days I’ve been meaning to share with you the Life in Pencil lessons from this first small chapter of motherhood, but my life has been reduced to two hour increments between naps and feedings.  In these small pockets of quiet I am wracked with anxiety about how I could spend these few precious moments:  I could write a letter or a blog post, read a book, make a cake, eat a sandwich, take a walk, return emails, call a friend, brush my hair, fold the laundry, pick up the living room, watch Oprah, write a thank you note…But most of the time?  I end up just sitting and being. And maybe, for right now, that’s enough.

Here’s what I know thus far:

1.       There are no shortcuts. During the first nights at home, I rushed through the process of late night feedings, eager to get Abra back to bed quickly.  The result?  It took twice as long as it would have.   Every supposed shortcut ends up taking more time.  Accept the fact that, when it comes to the things that matter most, it takes the time that it takes and can’t be rushed.

2.       Life’s most mundane tasks are a practice. Eight to twelve times a day I go through the process of nursing my baby.  It is incredibly boring, but I get better and better at it, and hate it less and less.  Like it or not, this is my job right now.  Sometimes life gives us work that requires repetition until we’ve perfected the task at hand (think “wax on, wax off” a la The Karate Kid).  When I approach nursing as a practice and not a chore, I find the deeper meaning contained therein.   When you have a job to do, no matter how commonplace, do it well.

3.       Seek joy in everything. Infancy isn’t a terribly exciting developmental stage, but I don’t want to wish it away either.  Sometimes life’s greatest challenge is finding joy in the things that aren’t inherently joyful.  On the worst days I soak in the five minutes a day that Abra nuzzles herself against me, without wanting to be fed, soothed, or otherwise engaged…even if it’s only five minutes.

4.       For better or worse, nothing is permanent. I spent a tearful, terrible Saturday wondering why I had signed up to become a mother, only to arise the next morning to a completely different baby and mothering experience.  On the other hand, I enjoyed a blissful week of restful nights, only to return on Sunday to sleepless ones.  I’ve learned to savor the good days with no further expectations, and remind myself on the bad ones that tomorrow is a new day.

5.       Schedules don’t mean much. Infants are randomness incarnate, which is difficult for an inherent planner such as myself.  Sleep schedules and feeding schedules are illusions.  I haven’t been on time to anything in weeks, but the world hasn’t stopped spinning.

6. Make time each day for the things that fill your soul. In the last five weeks I’ve learned that each day must include some time in the kitchen, some form of physical activity, and a bath.  This is especially true when times are tough.

7. Conquer fear. At first I was terrified to leave the house or be left alone with the baby.  What if she cried?  Pooped?  Spewed projectile vomit? But my own sanity soon dictated that I needed to get out of the house every day and face my greatest fears.  My confidence has increased exponentially and my mental health has flourished as a result.  Every week I go head-to-head with a new fear.

8. Let it go for now. My house is a complete disaster, littered with haystacks of laundry.  There are a mess of phone calls that have gone unreturned for weeks.  My to-do list grows longer and never shorter.  But it’s just how it has to be for now.  This, too, shall pass.

9. Focus on the ‘to-did’ list. I don’t get much done in a day, which is difficult for a ‘doer’ like myself.  In fact, it’s a miracle if I get anything done that I set out to do.  And when I do get something done it usually takes eight times longer than I had planned on.  So rather than focusing on what items didn’t get crossed off my to-do list I focus on what I did do (“ate an enchilada with one hand while nursing in public”), no matter how seemingly insignificant.

10. Do one thing at a time. Never in my life have I been so awful at multitasking.  Attempts to walk with Abra and talk on the phone are met with disaster.  Nursing and reading is even more difficult.  Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on one thing at a time, even if it means that I don’t get much done in a day.

Posted by Anne

I have trust issues.  Not issues with trusting people, mind you.  I’m easily trusting of people—maybe even too trusting.  I consider myself fairly trusty as well.  But trusting a process?  Trusting that life or my heart’s desire will work itself out?  I’m a big giant skeptic…hence my difficulty with life in pencil. Despite a very good life, I tend to question whether the future will give me what I want.   I doubt my future.  Stress over it.  So it’s a good thing other people believe in me.  People like…my sister, Gale.

Without the constant reality check of people like Gale, life would be one big old anxiety-fest.  When I want someone to confirm that my doubts and insecurities are unfounded and exaggerated, she’s happy to oblige.  She knocks the optimism back into me.

This was never truer than on a leisurely, sisterly afternoon in my mid-to-late 20’s.  I was single and convinced I would never find someone.  Never marry.  Never be in love…or at least requited love. (Yeah, I was totally dramatic about it.)  We were shopping together, and Gale wanted to hop inside the jewelry store to get her ring cleaned.  “Let’s play!” she said.  We tried on rings “for fun.”  This was not fun for me.  And after a few, I started to lose it.  I would never have one of these, so why on earth were we there?  We left the store, and poor Gale was left to interpret my drama-rama reaction through my flood of tears.  I don’t even remember what she said that day to comfort me.  All I remember was what she did a few months later.

She’d been out of town on business.  Not long after her return, she stopped by my apartment.  “I have a present for you,” she said.  “But it’s conditional.”  She went on.  “This is to remind you that you never need a man to give you jewelry.  If you want jewelry, you can have it.”  And she handed me a small, silk pouch.  Choked up, I loosened the drawstring, and emptied the contents of the pouch into my open palm.  A perfect string of pearls.

She wasn’t saying, “You’d better get used to buying your own jewelry.”  And she wasn’t saying, “Suck it up.”  In reality, she never doubted for a moment that I’d find someone to love.  But to her, there was no reason to go putting my own pleasure on hold until that day came.  The sensible thing is to just live and to live well.  The rest will come.

Hopeful and pragmatic.  Optimistic and grounded.  That is my sister.  Comforting to have someone who believes my life will work out just fine…despite my doubts, despite my fears.

Do you have someone in your life who can convince you things will work out even when your self-doubt is overwhelming?