One Week after HalloweenTwo years and a few days after my dear Dad passed away.  I sat down a dozen times to write about this 24 month landmark, but the words just didn't sit right. That same week also two birthdays - October 21, which  would have been my dear mother-in-law, Lila Greene's, 78th birthday, and October 22, the day my father would have turned 99 years old. An intense week, to say the least.
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And before I knew it, Halloween week was looming. Maedee had chosen a very lovely Cleopatra ensemble. Mila had changed her mind from a renaissance princess to Pippi Longstocking (including spraying her hair red) and had finally settled on a black flapper dress. Two down, one to go, and that one was not going to be easy, by a long shot.

Julea is a very specific child. She had a detailed idea of her costume in her mind and her much desired Halloween costume? Mary Poppins. Seems simple enough, right? If she had decided on the familiar Mary Poppins' outfit of blue dress, overcoat, hat and umbrella, we were at the finish line. Nope. She had in mind the dress from the "Jolly Holiday" scene, aka "Supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious." Exhaustive searches only came up with costumes that cost much more than our limited budget could afford. I tried to get her to switch gears, but despite searching through countless websites, she was determined to have her "Jolly Holiday" dress.

During this same time, I was finishing up a two week beginning sewing class. At my ripe age, I decided I finally needed to learn some basic skills and came home showing off a machine sewed pumpkin pot holder and scissors pouch, like a proud kindergartner. My kids decided that after two weeks of sewing class, I was able to sew anything, including Julea's "Jolly Holiday" dress. I have to admit, I believed  I could do it too.

We found a simple white dress online and ordered it. Red satin, thread, ruffles and red ribbons picked up and ready to put my new sewing skills into action. I picked up the dress a few days later and was off to the getting ready for Halloween races. I cut the red satin, measured it around Julea's waist and turned my den into a regular sweatshop. I sewed my fingers to the bones for two days and two nights. Even if I did prick them, I wouldn't have felt it anyway. Thanks to a local dinner theater, I scored a white hat and umbrella that they were willing to part with for five bucks. Halloween was still five days to go, but the school's Halloween parade was just a mere 48 hours away, which was almost a bigger deal than Halloween since the kids got to see all of each other's costumes and show them to the parents and teachers.

I was tired and my fingers hurt. But I kept on sewing through the night and turned the den into a lower east side sweatshop. I sewed blinking lights onto Mila's black flapper dress so she could shine and be seen in the night. I also secured Maedee's Cleopatra's neckpiece and sewed flannel into the arm pieces to soften the itchy fabric. The needle pricks into my fingertips didn't mean a thing.

Friday morning came and Julea tried on her dress. I tied the sash and watched as she put on the hat and lifted the umbrella. We gasped in unison. By George, we'd done it. She hurried into her school clothes and I promised them I'd be there in time to change for the parade.

I arrived at school and headed straight to her class. We gathered the girls and ushered them to the bathroom, where they changed amidst giggles and shyness. Julea beamed as her classmates' jaws dropped. Questions about where she got it were answered proudly with, "We got the dress, but my mama made the costume." I kissed her on the forehead and rushed off to Maedee's class to help her into her costume, thankfully much simpler to put on. Then to Mila's group, where she had already gotten into her flapper mode and stood eye to eye with me wearing a pair of my heels. Her teacher secured the lighting box with duct tape and Mila turned on the blinking lights. Adorable and very 5th grade.

I took a seat in the back row of the gym. The kindergartners stumbled in wearing dogs, cats, princesses and super heroes. First graders were a mish-mash of vampires, sports figures, more princesses and even an Iron Chef. Second graders became more ghoulish. Finally the third graders. First Maedee's class came in and I pushed to the front to take the first of many out of focus shots on my phone. She smiled right at me and looked wonderful. Julea's class came in next and she strolled across the gym floor with her umbrella jaunty against her shoulder. I don't think I've ever see her smile that big. My heart burst wide open.

Mila's class sauntered in as only 5th graders can do and she tried hard to look comfortable in my heels.

They all went off to their pre-Halloween parties, handing me their dresses after returning to their more comfortable school clothes. Halloween night came and they put them on again, this time with less flair and flash, but we managed to make it to three neighborhoods in 2.5 hours, with a caramel apple finish.

Halloween was over. October was over and the anniversary of my dad's passing had, well, passed without my writing a thing. But that seemed to be all right because I'd honored him with Halloween. For my dad, celebrating Halloween was proof that he was an American and he loved it. He carved pumpkins, took us trick or treating and when I was stuck for a costume in 5th grade, it was his idea to transform a round lamp box into a 7up can. He spray painted it and put on the shoulder straps and carved out the diamond-shaped cut out for me to hold my pillow case filled with candy.

As I sat up that week, cutting and sewing, cutting and sewing, I kept thinking about my dad and Halloween. When I just wanted to veg out on the couch, the memory of my Halloween's growing up got me up out my seat and carving three pumpkins. When my fingers felt like they were going to fall off my hands, I remembered my dad spray painting my 7up can in the garage after a full day at the store and I finished Julea's dress.

Remembering, like grief, surprises us. It happens in unlikely times and places, in line at the grocery store, or driving down a particular street at a certain time of day. Or it happens threading a needle with red thread and making an eight year old girl's Halloween wish come true. This year, so close to the actual losing, grief's memory was transformed into acts of parental giving and joy. And into a great Halloween.

For the past 19.5 years, I've been writing about motherhood. The mess of it, because it is a messy endeavor. The stress of it, because who are we kidding, motherhood is one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. And the joy of it, because beyond the long nights, the vomit, the poop, the sass, the yelling (oh, yes, there has been yelling), is joy. I wrote these series of essays as my gift to our three fiercely feisty daughters and to life with them and their father, the great love of all our lives. Without the experience of motherhood, my life would be way too clean and way too quiet and way too little in love . I owe these essay to my late mother-in-law, Lila Morrison Greene, who ordered me to write when the kids were little. "It will save your life," she told me. She was right. As always. 

I proudly believed myself to be the only mother in the modern history of motherhood to Walt Disney and the color Pink. My oldest daughter happily played with non-gender specific toys, had no idea what a princess was, and wore colors like blue, green, and black. Then one day she woke up and told us that she thought we should paint our house pink. And our living room. And our kitchen, bathroom, and car. All she would wear was pink. Everywhere she went she saw pink – look Mama, a pink bus! A pink bicycle! The sky is pink! I tried to pull her back to green and blue (I had given up on black) or even purple or red, but she would have none of it. To her everything had to be pink, so everything became pink. Then the Walt Disney princess armada arrived.

I’ve conducted some research on Walt and this is what I have found out: Walt was a lonely orphan whose only possession was a smidgen of black charcoal with which he created the lovable Mickey Mouse, based on his only childhood friend, a small field mouse.

Wrong. Walt Disney spent most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri on a 45-acre farm that was “shaded by broad weeping willows, cedars, and silver maples.” The official Disney site says that Walt could “smell the perfume of the apple blossoms” and that Walt’s memories of the farm were almost entirely favorable -- with the possible exception of the time he and little sister Ruth got into deep trouble for doodling on the barn with black sticky tar.” OOOOH. That must have been it. Because what else could explain the fact that Walt Disney has been responsible for more death and suffering of women on screen than the Chainsaw guy? I mean, what’s the deal with Walt and women? And I was supposed to let my kids watch this stuff? Case in point:

• Dumbo – Mother gets chained up and labeled ‘crazy’ for defending her baby.
• Snow White – Vain stepmother, consults her Magic Mirror to learn that her stepdaughter's beauty surpasses her own; the lovely young girl must flee into the forest to live with seven short guys.
• Tarzan – Parents get axed in the first thirty seconds, plus a dead gorilla baby just in case that isn’t enough trauma.
• Sleeping Beauty – She pricks her finger, goes to sleep and has to wait for some prince to wake her up.
• Bambi – no comment needed
• Nemo – Starts out really cute, but then Nemo’s mother is killed in the first or second frame and then he and his father have an ‘adventure’ and get chased by sharks that make the one in “Jaws” look like a bathtub toy.
  

But the one who really gets my goat?

​The Little Mermaid - Ariel – I guess I should blame Hans Christian Anderson for this one, but I will go ahead and make Uncle Walt a co-conspirator as well. If Ariel had a mother, like any good little mermaid does, she would have sat her down on the nearest clamshell and told her all about the pitfalls of being a two-legged female creature. Namely, not only won’t your clothes fit and you will have to get used to these weird things called shoes, but you will get something called your period. Then her mother would have pulled out a sanitary napkin and belt (visual aid here) and shown her how it worked. That would have been it. Ariel might have thought the prince was cute, but she would never have traded in her nifty tail for a lifetime of Kotex.

See, it doesn’t matter if you are a fish, an elephant, a mermaid, or even Nemo’s mother, if you are a mother in a Disney film you are dead meat. End of story. Not really...

Mama told me there be days like these! I couldn't be more thrilled, honored, more filled with nachas (not nachos, although it is dinner time and my stomach is growling...)! My essay, "My Teflon Birth Plan" is part of the incredible collection of essays "So Glad They Told Me: Mothers Get Real About Motherhood" published TODAY by the rockstar The HerStories Project.

The essays range from hilarious to poignant and box of tissues worthy and all of them share one of the most important things we can bring to the ongoing conversation about motherhood - BRAVE HONESTY. 

My essay is a meditation on the birth I had, rather than the birth I believed I would have. It's about sinking in and letting go.  I dedicate this essay to my three daughters, who have taught me more than I can ever teach them. 

The name of my blog is mother.writer. First and foremost, I am a mother and simultaneously, a writer. I wrote through the early days of mothering and it quite frankly saved my life and sanity. I found a way to express the intensely physical and personal experience of birthing and raising three amazing young women, as well as finding support and community, all of which is richly represented in this book. 

But don't take my word for it, get a copy for yourself and dive into the essays! 

The book is available on Amazon and as of today, the official release day, is ranked the Hot New Release in Motherhood! Booya! Get your copy today and support our valuable voices!

Some weeks just plain suck. I drag myself to get out of bed, the coffee is never strong enough, and any kind of communication, just seems to be side-stepping my keyboard, my brain and my mouth. It has been this kind of week. A difficult encounter with a co-worker that left me feeling diminished, stressed, and threatened. A sudden health issue for my aging mother. Three teen agers who live to challenge and provoke. A marriage that could use some time in the repair shop.

When I have a week like this, of course, I look to see who is at fault: my co-worker, my kids, the health care system. My spouse. My job. My life.

Luckily I’m able to interrupt this self-victim fest with the feast of Passover, where, if I can finally figure this shit out, will allow me to stop looking out the window and instead, in the mirror for the narrow places that create the obstacles to the life I so want to be in. And by looking in the mirror, I’m not talking about the one that reflects the hundreds of lip lines, or furrows between my brows. 

I’m talking about the mirror of my soul. My neshama’s mirror. To help me through the narrow places of my self-destructive and self-sabotage habits, I’m turning to the wisdom of Rabbi Yael Levy, whose daily meditations have struck a deep chord for me. I’ll start with “Healing the Hardened Heart,” which discusses that the month of Nisan is a time for healing the hardened heart – tikkun halev. The rabbi instructs us to:

·        Free ourselves from stories that bind us to anger, jealously and pain.

·        Let go of habits that perpetuate isolation and fear.

·        Free ourselves from reacting with harsh judgment and distain.

·        Let go of ways of being that keep us from seeing the beauty in each other.

·        May the healing of the heart help us enter into full and expansive connection with each other and the unfolding of all life. (https://mishkan.org/healing-the-hardened-heart)

Passover is a time of replacing the puffy food substances that we take for granted, and instead eating unleavened bread - in my case, unleavened gluten-free bread - as a way of digesting the meaning of the Exodus out of Egypt. That puffy-ness represents the place of habit, of ego, of behavior patterns that need attention and healing. For me, the healing exists in the conversations I have in my mind that perpetuate anger and arguments. Healing exists in my strange need to live and create drama. Healing exists in the behavior that keeps me from feeling true connection. 

But I can't do that in a New York minute. I may not even be able to do it in the Passover week. But at least, with humility and hope, I can start. 

Today, as I enter into Passover, may I start to shine some light into the narrow habitual places that only perpetuate loneliness, alienation, and isolation. May my freedom begin in my heart and extend out to my beloved children, my spouse, and my community.

To the work it takes to begin the process of personal freedom. May it heal our individual and collective hearts. 

 

The day had started off as most do. I had woken up early and after my coffee, I decided to stave off the below zero weather by making banana, date, and cranberry muffins. Gluten-free, of course. I had both sides of the oven on and the kitchen was smelling delicious and even the ice on the windows was starting to soften. 

I had just taken the muffins out of the oven and they were a perfect golden brown. I wanted them to cool off on the bakers rack that I had placed in the warming tray when I'd cleaned and organized the kitchen on Christmas Day. That's what this Jewish girl did on Christmas day - cleaned and organized the kitchen and laundry room and then cooked up a Chinese feast. But back to the muffins. I opened the warming drawer and something gray, furry, and fast ran past my fingertips. I stifled what felt like a volcanic scream into a small screech, so as to not wake the sleeping oldest child. I slammed the drawer shut and sent three frantic texts to my husband. Blech. 

He came home on his break and proceeded to tear apart the kitchen in search of the mouse. No mouse. Are you sure? I questioned him. He took the flashlight on his iPhone and searched in every drawer, behind the refrigerator, and under the sink. No mouse. He had to get back to work, I had to pick up the twins at their sleepover. 

I didn't expect my final post of 2014, let alone my final day of the year, to be about buying a mousetrap at Home Depot. And I add, I didn't expect to experience the shame I felt in the pest control aisle. I was really hoping my husband would handle it, but as I was already going out to get goodies for our stay-at-home New Year's Eve sushi dinner, and he wasn't sure when he'd be home, I bravely agreed. This year has been about doing things that take me to the edge and trust me, buying mousetraps definitely falls into that category.

I walked into Home Depot and asked someone where the mousetraps were. A long pause and then a direction - where the rest of the pest control was, which in this store's case, was anchored to a south facing wall. Good, I thought as I strolled over, lingering by a flat-screen TV fireplace. Less  of a chance to be seen. 

My stomach began to tighten as I looked up and down the aisle. There were solutions for ants, centipedes, gophers, and not in alphabetical order. I didn't want to have to ask for help again. Then I saw them. Nestled into the corner of the shelf were a variety of lethal weapons suitable for rodents. I kept my distance. My heart began to race as I peered at the ones that promised rodent genocide. If that was needed, we'd be moving into the nearest hotel. 

It took a while, but I finally found them. A pack of four mousetraps for $1.97. I picked the package up with my gloves still on (and which are now in the laundry) and held it an arm's length from my body. My sense of shame was close to making it difficult for me to breathe and I became desperate to find something else to buy, so that no one would think that I was there just for the mousetraps. I stumbled into the light bulb section and found four 40 watt bulbs, which we really needed. Really.

As I checked out in the self-service lane, I felt like I did the first time I ever bought condoms, or rolling papers, or how my husband feels when he has to buy tampons and pads. When buying these items, they are never a solo purchase, and always with other essentials, as if my list went something like this:

• Eggs
• Milk
• Coffee
• Condoms, Rolling papers, mousetraps

About a month ago, when the last really cold front happened, our cat brought in a mouse and then proceeded to lose it. The mouse lived for a while behind the refrigerator until it met a timely (for me) death. I told a colleague at work about it and she asked me if I we'd used a "humane" trap. I informed her that we were not the "catch and release" kind of folks. I wasn't about to humanely trap the mouse so that the cat could just enjoy bringing it back in again. I have enough Sisyphus moments in my life.  No, today, I wasn't falling for any fancy mouse trapping items. I wanted the simple mousetrap, the one that has often been used as a metaphor for our competitive and capitalistic culture. One that would hold a small bit of cheese and peanut butter as the last supper, or breakfast, for the little critter. 

I've never been a fan of rodents. As a child growing up in Southern California, we had tree rats the size of possum and for a while had a family living in our attic, which made for lots of terrorizing by my brothers. When I lived in New York City during college, I shared a dingy apartment in what was truly Hell's Kitchen and slept for two weeks in the bathtub when the mice took up residence without paying rent. For a while I thought I'd gotten over my fear when I began to volunteer at the Longmont Humane Society for the small paws, which was the only group the twins could help with. Our time mostly consisted of tending to the rabbits and guinea pigs, but when those lovelies were scarce, we had to help out with the rats. Or I should say, I sat as far away as I could while the twins played with them. I held one and it peed on me and that was enough. 
 
The shame is not just mine. When our oldest announced to her sisters that we had a "mouse problem," one of them burst into tears as if we were living out scenes from Les Miserable. But I also felt such a sense of shame in the pest control aisle at Home Depot. Why? We live in the world with lots of creatures and rodents are among the most plentiful of them. I have no answers, but will have something to ponder as the ball drops in Times Square tonight. 

But as the year ends, I can proudly say that I've purchased my first mousetraps and I'm waiting for my husband to place them strategically in our kitchen. And while we wait for those to work their magic, I'll be searching on Amazon for a high-frequency mouse detractor. 

We really know how to live it up on New Year's eve, right?

Here's to always finding humor, in 2015, and beyond. 

Va’ahavtem et ha-ger: You shall love the stranger.

It was the first night of Chanukah. We'd stopped at the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine. I waited in the car with the girls, staying warm and giggling at how delicious the latkes smelled, resisting reaching into the back to steal one. And then I saw her. She looked to be about 75 years old and she stood on the corner in a light blue parka holding a neatly written sign: Disabled. Homeless. Gas. Food. Money. I saw a walker and an oxygen tank. I signed deeply, deeply enough to get the girls' attention. "What, Mama?" Then they all looked out the window and saw the lady. 

"What does her sign say?"

One of them read it aloud and we sat there. 

I unlocked the door.

"Mama, what are you doing?"

"I'm giving the lady some latkes." I wrapped up two potato and two apple latkes in some foil. And then I remembered I had a little bit of money in my wallet. I reached back into the car and took out a $5 bill.

"Hi," I said as I tried to approach with respect. She looked up at me as I offered her the foil wrapped package. "It's just some potato pancakes, and here's five dollars."

She smiled. "Thanks, I love potato pancakes."

"Please tell me you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight," I asked her. The temperatures in Colorado have been below zero for the past two weeks. She assured me she'd already called her sister. She thanked me and I wished her well.

We had no room in the car and our family was waiting. 

As we drove away, I broke down. All the tears I'd been holding back all day, just came forward. I told Jack we had to do something; that I couldn't bare the idea of that lady being on the street in the cold. I got on my phone and called the local shelter, but their warming center wouldn't be open for another hour. I called the Boulder Homeless Shelter and cried on the phone as a sweet woman tried to figure out how to get this woman to some warm shelter. She finally suggested I call the police and they'd come and get her without making her feel like a criminal. I called the police and told them about this lady. The dispatcher told me it could be someone who makes her living doing this, but when I told her the woman's location and that she had a walker and an oxygen tank, she promised to send a car and see if they could help.

We got to our family gathering and had a beautiful, embracing evening. Presents, lighting the candles, five varieties of latkes, soup and homemade sufganiyot. Playing dreidel and lots of laughter. Everything I remember my first night's of Chanukah always being. And everything I want my children's first nights of Chanukah to be.

As we were driving back home and approached Longmont, we came to a red light. I turned to Jack and asked, "Can we see if she's still there?"

Without blinking an eye, he moved into the left lane and started driving in that direction. The girls woke from their car-drive-home sleeping and asked, "Are we going to see if the lady is still there?"

We crossed Main Street, then Hover, turning right. Turned left into the King Soopers parking center and toward the liquor store. None of us said a word.

She was gone.

I took Jack's hand and he turned the car toward home.

"The lady is somewhere warm?"

Yes, my darlings. The lady is somewhere warm.

The funny thing about a long term relationship is that you get to experience the great pendulum swing that happens when two people share a space and a life for a period of time. Sometimes the pendulum swings in the direction of deep connection, humor and passion. Sometimes the pendulum swings in the other direction and it's not very much fun. Add in some financial instability, parenting and lots of daily stress and sometimes the pendulum seems to get stuck in the polar opposite of the sweet space.

Last night, the pendulum got a little stuck in that other direction. Well, more than a little stuck. More like super-glued.

The details of how an argument gets started are rarely important. A look misinterpreted; a too long pause before responding, a simple gesture taken too personally. It doesn't really matter what pulls the pendulum away from the love at the center of a relationship.

In our case, it was a plastic bag. A plastic bag filled with glass beads and other items that had been left on the coffee table. I was working on my computer and Jack picked up the bag. I asked him to leave it and that I would put it away when I was done. Jack picked it up again and then kind of crumpled it. I responded with annoyance in my tone. "Please don't, there are glass beads in there and you'll break them."

See? The details are insignificant and really dull. But the result was a heated hour that followed the case of the crumpled plastic bag with words thrown back and forth at rapid speed and with little thought. Sigh.

The thing about our relationship is that we are talkers. Or, as we've been labeled, "verbal processors." For close to 30 years we've been verbally processing and we especially love to talk when the pendulum swings in the other direction. We will talk an argument into at least five other arguments with so much speed that we have a hard time remembering with the originating argument was even about. Kind of funny and really silly. 

After lots of years of this, we decided it was time to get some professional help. One of the first things our therapist told us was that we both talk too much. That was quite the moment, when our therapist, a person trained to help people like us talk through their issues, tells us that we talk too much. It was probably the only quiet moment in our time with this therapist, as we all sat there dumbfounded.

But back to the crumpled bag argument. We did realize we had lapsed into our habit of talking too much and that we were both invested in not only trying to be right, but in proving the other person wrong, a pretty universal condition of arguing. 

Maybe it was because it was really late, or perhaps something inside of me had just shifted, but I blurted out, "We should begin every argument with one question - do I need to be right?" Again, not an earth-shaking realization, but in that moment, saying those words stopped these two world-class talkers in our tracks. 

We asked each other that question and the answer for both of us was NO. Neither of us needed to be right and the argument could be let go of without feeling like we'd given in. There was nothing left to say.

I'll never give up being a talker, no matter what any therapist or anyone else says, and certainly not in my relationship. Our talking has taken us to the deepest places in our imagination and in our love. Our talking has shaped us as parents and in our children's high level of articulation. Our talking represents how much we care about our relationship and how hard we will fight to keep intact.

If our talking is the way we swing our relationship pendulum back toward the passion, the humor and life-long connection, as well as to the everyday center it usually settles at, then so be it.

I'm happy to give up being right. Just don't expect me to stop talking.